How to design an outdoor courtyard

The courtyard is the ideal place in the house where you can relax and enjoy yourself. It can be even more pleasant if it overlooks a garden. You can have a plain and lifeless courtyard, or you can decide to give it character and depth. This starts with good flooring, attractive wall design, and a whole range of initiatives you can take to decorate your yard as much as possible. Let’s discover together in this article how to go about designing your outdoor courtyard.

What flooring should you choose for your outdoor courtyard?

When choosing your outdoor flooring, you will have the choice between different types of flooring. The choice must take into account the use you make of your yard. Depending on whether it is drivable, that is, accessible to cars, or pedestrian, you have the possibility to opt for different types of flooring.

For drivable floors, you can use natural or reconstituted paving stones if you have a regional or antique-style house. If you have a contemporary-style house, you can opt for black or colored asphalt. You can also choose aggregate accompanied by a gravel stabilizer. It is also possible to opt for gravel emulsion or deactivated concrete. For pedestrian floors, several choices are again possible. These include regional stone slabs, wooden slats, natural or synthetic grass, or even terracotta.

What arrangement for the walls?

Any approach taken to landscaping an outdoor courtyard will leave a feeling of incompleteness if it doesn’t include the courtyard walls. There are a variety of ways to decorate the courtyard walls. For example, you can cover them with climbing plants like Virginia creeper or ivy. You can also use decorative trellises or create a retrenchment effect behind wood cladding. Painting them in color will give your walls a shimmering effect. You can also plant plants in front of the walls or install mirrors to give a sense of depth. Beyond the walls, you can also use other decorative accessories to further brighten up your outdoor courtyard, such as masonry planters, wooden planters, or a vegetable patch.