It’s always the right season to install a pergola in your yard. It’s a great investment in your home if you’re planning on selling as it creates the feeling of an extra room in your garden. Even if you’re not planning on moving any time soon, you’ll find that having a pergola in your yard brings a lot of joy to you and your family. There’s a whole range of ways that you can use the space under your pergola from formal outdoor dining to a cosy fire pit surrounding, so the real choice that faces you is not whether to get a pergola or not, but how you want to design your brand new outdoor space.
What Is A Pergola?
There is a classic vision that comes to many people’s mind when they hear the word ‘pergola’. It tends to be the Italianate pergola with climbing vines providing shade and a rustic dining table underneath for the entire family to sit around. While this can be accurate, a pergola is defined by its structure rather than what it’s used for. It’s an open sided building, with a latticed roof made from beams, all held up by a series of posts. It’s the perfect way to create some definition and some shade on your deck or patio. You can also build it to be free standing in your yard as a way of creating a new outdoor space in a separate part of your yard.
Modern Pergola Designs
A pergola is a great home improvement project if you’re on a tight budget and looking for something that can be constructed quickly. The posts can be screwed into a deck or a patio, and from there it’s a simple process to get the beams installed. The classic look is pressure treated posts and beams, but you can bring a more modern feel to your pergola with some of these designs:
- Painted wood – if you’re looking for an aesthetic that blends with your house rather than standing out, then a painted wood pergola is likely to be the right kind of design for you. These work best for pergolas that are either attached to the home in some way, or are at least close to the back wall of the house. You can then match the paint colour of your home to the pergola, which will provide a transition that is pleasing to the eye, as well as incorporating your pergola into your home.
- Metal frames – most people consider anything made from metal to be modern design, but you don’t have to compromised on the structural integrity of your pergola design just by moving away from the wooden post and beam structure. You can create sleek looking designs with thick metal posts coupled with overhanging thin metal lattices to give you a hint of shade. A metal pergola should be a centrepiece for your garden, so don’t be afraid to choose bold colours and overlapping lattice designs to make your pergola truly stand out.
- Mixed materials – finally, you can aim for a kind of hybrid pergola design where different parts of the structure are made of different materials. For example, a common example of a mixed material pergola is to use metal for the strong posts, and then wood for the lattice. Not only do you get the strength and suppleness of both materials, but you can create some interesting visual effects from this design choice.
Talking with our team of expert pergola designers here at Desert Sun Patios will give you an idea of what you’ll be able to manage with your budget and space, so make sure you have these numbers ready when you come to talk to use about your modern pergola design ideas.
Getting Creative With Your Pergola
It’s clear to see that your pergola can and should be a gathering space to help you make the most of your outdoor space. As the focal area of your garden, you want to make sure that you’ve got some extra features that make the jaw drop, and keep your friends and family coming back for more time outside with you. These modern pergola design ideas should get your creative juices going:
- Eternal fire pit – the idea of a fire pit can often feel onerous as you need to build the fire each night and assign someone to oversee it to make sure it doesn’t go out. A modern twist on the fire pit is to choose one that connects to your main gas supply from the house. This means that you can start the fire in an instant, control the height and the heat of the flames and turn it off as soon as you’re done. You won’t have to worry about smoke or fuel supplies, and you can make the fire pit the centrepiece of your modern pergola design.
- Luxurious hot tub – hot tubs are a popular choice for pergola owners when the space is in a private area of the yard. Make sure there’s space for loungers and armchairs nearby for those who don’t want to get wet, or who overheat. It’s always a good idea to invest heavily in your hot tub to get all the right features and to get enough space so that you can entertain multiple guests at your leisure.
- BBQ/Bar combo – finally, consider an alternative way to entertain your guests. Instead of the usual dining table, install an L shaped bar (complete with alcohol storage and enough tall bar stools for your guests!) with a barbeque to one side. This modern setup allows you to serve up simple bar food like burgers and steak sandwiches while allowing your friends and family to relax and chat with you as you cook. The bar doubles as a central place for congregating as well as a work surface for your meals.
Once you’ve picked your key modern pergola design feature, you can then work through the fine details such as the style of furniture and lighting options. You’ll be amazed at how quickly your modern pergola design becomes your reality.
