Karen E Laine's Advice For Creating A Dynamic Yard - Exclusive
Few things are more enjoyable than a gorgeous backyard, garden, or outdoor space that you've designed perfectly to your liking and lifestyle needs. Actually designing your yard, though, can be somewhat of a hassle. Unlike interior design, exterior design requires a lot more practicality while also having a lot less structure, a combination that can be difficult to manage on your own.
This is what master gardener and co-host of HGTV's "Good Bones" Karen E. Laine strives to help a family with on the channel's special, "Good Bones: Better Yard." The one-hour special showcases Laine helping a family restore their yard from one that's overrun with plants, vines, and pests to one that is both beautiful and practical to their needs and lifestyle. In an exclusive interview with House Digest, Laine told us about the special, as well as some of her own real-life tips and tricks for designing a gorgeous, dynamic backyard space.
Create sight lines
Exterior design may be very different from interior design, but something both design approaches have in common are basic rules and concepts to start out with. "Trends come and go, but the basic designs, which are the same for inside and outside, will never change," Karen E. Laine told House Digest.
Specifically, Laine emphasizes the importance of sight lines. "What I love to do is create sight lines. The farthest place you can see, I want something to be there that draws your eye to that distance."
Even if you have a really small outdoor space or backyard, Karen assured us that you can create a dynamic backyard with an engaging sight line. "There's something interesting in the distance, and you're going to move into the space to explore everything that's in it so you can get to that distant thing that you saw," she said. "It can be a tree or a shrub or a water feature or a bench or a piece of art. It can be whatever your imagination can conceive — you can create a sight line to it."
Above all, Karen says your yard, like your home's interior, should be an extension of you. "... your outdoor space, just like your indoor space, should be a reflection of your own personality, how you move through the world, how you want to use that space."
"Good Bones: Better Yard" is available to stream on discovery+.