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Stress Busters: 10 Ways to Add Some Chill to Your Backyard

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Wound tight and yearning for a place to relax and unwind? There’s nothing like the great outdoors to lift your spirits and loosen your muscles. It’s time to grab a cold, frosty beverage, and dip your toes into one of these 10 outdoor spaces perfectly designed to melt the stress away…. Take a Snooze. Lie back and indulge in the outdoors atop a cushy outdoor daybed or sofa, quickly engaging the motorized screens or curtains of your adjustable pergola to block out the glare of the sun or provide a bit of privacy. Enjoy a Glass of Wine on Your Private Bistro. Put your feet up, sitting side-by-side with your favorite red, enjoying a quiet dinner al fresco no matter the weather, quickly adjusting your Arcadia aluminum pergola to block the rain or sun on-demand via convenient remote control or iLouver app adjustment. Let it All Hang Out. Take a 3-hour tour of the back of your eyelids in a classic hammock, open...
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The Why & How of Office Workspace Additions

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Draining artificial lighting. Confining cubicles. Bleak surroundings. Constant coworker interruptions. It probably comes as no surprise, 76% of workers report being more productive outside the typical office environment. When office morale and productivity is lacking, it’s time to think outside the box, helping workers check-off their to-do list in a sunny, open, Wi-Fi enabled workspace. How can you pull it off? Interior Courtyards If a custom build is on the horizon, consider the integration of an interior courtyard to your upcoming workspace. Centrally located, interior courtyards are highly coveted for bringing natural light more readily into surrounding building recesses. Well-recognized for its capacity to boost mood and reduce stress, this reduces the need for artificial light sources known to inflate energy bills and cortisol (stress) hormone levels. And that’s not where the benefits end. Interior courtyard setups also deliver natural circulation and ventilatio...
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Blend Your Hot Tub Seamlessly Into Your Landscape with these 7 Tips

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Yearning to incorporate a hot tub into your outdoor living space , but not sure how to add this 500+ gallon vessel of water without it sticking out like a sore thumb? We’ve got a few tricks up our sleeve to help you camouflage your super soaker… 7 Tricks to Seamlessly Blend a Hot Tub Into Your Outdoor Living Space Upgrade to cover 2.0. Instead of the ugly, factory vinyl cover that typically comes with hot tubs, invest in a rolling spa cover. Unlike the waterlogged factory cover, you won’t have to wrestle with rolling models each time you take a dip. These custom-made covers easily slide out of the way, tucking out of sight. Adding a platform deck? Don’t forget to leave enough space for the cover to slide safely beneath. Keep it under wraps. Wrapping a wooden enclosure around your hot tub is a great way to mask its massive form. This can be easier than you think if you take advantage of existing walls and railings. Add functi...
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Achieve a Relaxing, Functional Outdoor Living Space with these 8 Pergola Tips

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A relaxing, comfortable, and well put together outdoor living space does not revolve around a bargain store patio furniture impulse buy. A functional, beautiful outdoor living space requires careful planning to ensure a useful, inviting design. What’s the Formula for an Outstanding Outdoor Living Space Design? Answering these questions before purchasing patio items will help you ensure a successful outcome: How Much Space Do You Have to Work With? This will depend on your property’s unique footprint, zoning, and HOA limitations. What’s the Purpose of Your Outdoor Living Area? How will you and your family gain the most enjoyment from your space? With the addition of a relaxing retreat, a comfortable outdoor kitchen and dining space , or outdoor game room? The necessary features (and space required to house them) will depend largely on this decision. Where Would You Like to Put Your Outdoor Space? The typical l...
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Instead of Eating Out, Eat Outside!

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Food bills can put a huge dent in family finances, particularly if dining out is a regular practice. A major monthly expense, the amount families spend eating out has surpassed the amount spent on grocery items for home use. Worsening the issue, the cost of eating out is also on the rise according to restaurant industry news, rising 2.7%, while the cost humbler homemade fare has dropped 0.5%. Is family among those with a budget ballooning at the expense of restaurant dining? Eat Out in Your Own Backyard If you’re looking for a quick escape, and to dining out to deliver, why not escape to the outdoors and the joy of a healthful, simply prepared home cooked meal in your own backyard? Home cooked food is both cheaper and healthier, and what little prep work is involved makes for a great family bonding activity, particularly when surrounded by the beauty of the outdoors. Rather than stretching finances thin with repetitive restaurant purchases, why not think outside the fast food...
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10 Ways an Outdoor Living Space Can Improve Your Health

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Looking for a reason to invest and indulge in an outdoor living space this year? It’s Harvard-recommended. Healthy for the mind and body, with none of the side effects of prescriptions, spending time outdoors is proven to support your physical and mental health. Recommended by Harvard Medical School Research from Harvard Medical School points to the significant health benefits of spending time outdoors, from grabbing a bite to eat or wrapping up the day’s work, to putting your feet up and relaxing. What’s so great about the great outdoors? Time Outside Boosts Vitamin D Essential to overall health, exposing your skin to the sunshine creates more bioavailable Vitamin D. More readily utilized by your body, such naturally-produced Vitamin D outshines synthetic substitutes in performance. And most Americans don’t get enough, motivating many doctors to write prescriptions for the ‘sunshine vitamin’ due to its impressive protective benefit...
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Tight Space? Scenery Scarce? Add Gorgeous Greenery with a Vertical Garden

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Is your outdoor space covered in concrete, or tiny as a postage stamp? Don’t underestimate its potential. With vertical gardening, even a small, sterile space can be transformed into lush, green outdoor living escape.     photo credit:  http://www.livingwallart.com What is a Vertical Garden? With a vertical garden, also called a living wall or green wall, the sky's the limit to your potential for adding the ambiance of nature to your landscape. Typically mounted to interior or exterior building walls, and occasionally to fences, vertical planting setups vary widely in size, shape, scope, and technology. Despite these differences, however, each offers an amazing opportunity to easily transform your outdoor space into a verdant outdoor oasis . Allowing for the incorporation of plant life into nearly any location, the benefits of vertical gardens don’t end at their luxurious looks. Vertical gardens also help control the heat island effect, keeping ...
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