When Linda Mclean's husband, Michael, turned 50 last year, she wanted to buy him something really special.
So she did: a hot tub and entertainment center where he can lie under the stars, being massaged by warm bubbles while flicking through television channels, listening to surround-sound stereo, or watching a DVD on a pop-up plasma screen built into the spa.
Linda Mclean has created an entire living area outside her Brookeville home that includes not only a pool, patio and eating area, but also a Gazebo enclosed spa with builtin television and dvd system.
(Michael Lutzky - The Washington Post)
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"Our back yard is a resort for us," said Mclean, who lives on a two-acre lot in Brookeville in upper Montgomery County. It includes a swimming pool and a red cedar gazebo that houses the hot tub. "It's our palace."
And the Mcleans aren't the only ones who feel that way. Homeowners across the country, whether they're sitting on acres of land or facing onto a postage-stamp-sized patio, are expanding the livable square footage of their homes by heading out their sliding doors and creating new living spaces outside.
According to the Census Bureau, Americans spent $17.43 billion remodeling outdoor spaces in 2003, 42 percent more than in 1998. And they said they planned to spend $3.2 billion furnishing them, according to a 2003 survey by Casual Living magazine.
Sandy Clinton of Clinton & Associates Landscape Architects in Hyattsville said that what homeowners are looking for outside is "an extension of their indoor space. They're trying to create a room outside. Sometimes it's a kitchen, sometimes it's a living room, sometimes it's a dining room. Oftentimes, it's all three."
To outfit their outdoor rooms, American homeowners are buying anything from a $100 free-standing fireplace, called a chimenea, to a $30,000 outdoor kitchen fitted with an under-counter refrigerator, warming drawers, a trash compactor and cold beer on tap. And manufacturers are fueling the demand with an array of new products.
"There's been a dramatic change in the product mix for outdoors in the past five years because of the boom in outdoor living," said Cinde W. Ingram, managing editor of Casual Living magazine. "There's all kinds of new products now, new fabrics, new colors. You can tell the difference in the stores."
And outdoor living isn't a luxury reserved just for the rich.
"It can be low-budget, or it can be the 'sky is the limit,' " said Leslie Wheeler, director of communications for the Arlington-based Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association. "Here in the Washington area, it's that, and everything in between."
Wheeler said shipments of free-standing wood fireplaces went up 96.2 percent from 2002 to 2003. Shipments of gas products, such as grills, fueled either by propane or natural gas, went up 44.5 percent over the same period.
"More and more people want outside features for their homes," said Gopal Ahluwalia, director of research for the National Association of Home Builders. "It's the same mentality that makes people move to Florida -- a love of the outdoors."
Ahluwalia said studies show that the desire for more outdoor features crosses all ethnic lines and income levels. "Everybody wants them," he said.
Ahluwalia said that in the upscale market, 8 percent of new homes now come with an outdoor kitchen, compared with half that 20 years ago. Half of all new single-family houses built last year had porches, up from 42 percent 10 years ago. And 45 percent of new homes built in 2003 had a patio, compared with 37 percent in 1993.
