September 8, 2015
Categories:
Designing Outdoor Spaces
In a recent survey conducted by Houzz in was found that 80% of homeowners hired professional help to renovate their house last year, with 60% of homeowners making upgrades to outdoor spaces. The most common upgrade was to patios, decks, and terraces. With over half of all outdoor spaces being designed for year-round use, it should come as no surprise that the most active regions for improvements to outdoor spaces were in the South and West.
Designers try to create outdoor spaces that will allow you to do everything that you normally do indoors, effectively expanding your home to the outdoor space. The majority of designers will even try to match the styles and colors you have inside your house to what they are designing for the outside. They primarily focus on three activities when designing an outdoor space, entertaining, relaxing, and cooking. For an outdoor space, designers on average spent $6500 on outdoor furniture this year, a 37% increase from last year when they spent only $4750. They also spent an average of $1500 on grills, up 25% from last year. But the biggest change is in outdoor accessories such as rugs and wall decor, designers spent $2000 on average for these items, an 82% increase from 2014's average of $1100. Perhaps the main reason for this tremendous increase in spending on accessories comes from the desire to make outdoor spaces feel more like indoor spaces.
The only items that designers are spending less on this year is outdoor lighting, which at $2000 on average is down 11% from last year. This is a bit surprising since the most common technology designers incorporate into outdoor spaces is LED lighting. But as improvements are being made in this new technology, prices for LED lighting have been dropping.
Designers are also focusing less on more traditional uses for outdoor spaces. Only 57% of designers include plans for gardening in their designs. 45% will include plans for playing with children. While only 43% will include plans for sunbathing and swimming. This further emphasizes the idea that the space outside of your home is just an extension of the space inside your home, instead of being a completely separate space devoted to only outdoor activities.
Designers most typically source products for outdoor spaces at trade shows and design centers, but many of them also go to casual furniture stores or look online. If you are a supplier of casual furniture or accessories it would be a good idea to make sure that you product can be found in these places. If you need help with cash flow so you can attend the markets, or need to start offering net 30 day terms on your invoices, give DSA Factors a call at 773-248-9000. We have been factoring for the furniture and accessories industry since 1987 and are very familiar with the seasonal nature of the casual furniture industry. Also, look out for us as we will be visiting the Casual Market Chicago from September 16-19.
