Summer in Canada means spending more time outdoors, often in our own backyards. If your outdoor spaces leave a little – or a lot – to be desired, we’ve got some tips for creating a stylish backyard retreat. Whether you’re stay-cationing at home or simply want to extend your home’s entertaining zone to the outdoors, there are ways to make your exterior rooms more inviting and comfortable.
Of course, our first stop with any outdoor room is the electric fireplace. Call it an occupational hazard, but we just don’t think the backyard, patio or deck is complete without a fireplace. Our fireplace of choice is electric, for lots of reasons, which are outlined below. Once you’ve selected a fireplace, you need to add texture and character with natural stone. Because our weather is so unpredictable, we’re also adding additional heat sources for those really cool days and nights. Last, but not least, we’re adding a great little grill to keep your family and friends coming back for more.
Electric Outdoor Fireplace Advantages
An electric outdoor fireplace is much more adaptable than gas or wood-burning fires to the wide-ranging temperatures that make up a Canadian Spring, Summer or Fall. With an electric fireplace, you can run the flames with or without heat, which means that you can have the fireplace on no matter what the temperature. If it’s a warm, rainy day and you need ambiance without heat, you can do that. If it’s a chilly evening and you need a little heat with your flames, you can do that, too. With gas or wood-burning fires, the flames automatically generate heat, which you may not always need.
Because electric fireplaces have LED lighting, you have lots of options to change the look of the fireplace to suit your mood and the seasons. You can add a little blue lighting to cool things down visually on a hot day, or crank up the red highlights to make the fire look warmer on cold nights. You also have control over the interior media options, like crystals, logs and stones.
If outdoor living is a family affair, you will want to be conscious of safety. An electric outdoor fireplace has glass that stays cool, so there’s no risk of burns to younger kiddos or pets. There’s also no off-gassing of carbon monoxide. There are also no carbon emissions being released into the environment, which is better for the planet than gas or wood-burning fires.
If you live in a forest fire zone, electric fireplaces have no sparks or open flames, because there’s nothing burning. That means there’s no risk of accidentally starting a forest fire.
Adding Other Heaters Around Your Outdoor Fireplace
You may be wondering why you would need heaters other than the fireplace. Not everyone does. If your backyard or patio is large enough to have different zones, like a dining area and a seating area, a single outdoor fireplace may not be enough to keep everyone comfortable. Rather than having multiple fireplaces, we suggest that you add electric patio heaters to the areas furthest away from the fireplace. That way, everyone can enjoy ambiance and warmth, without having to be right next to the fire. Electric patio heaters may be installed at the top of a wall or under the overhang, to provide radiant heat to the people and objects below. Radiant heat is like sunshine – it warms up everything in its path. There’s even a freestanding, portable, plug-in electric patio heater that can be moved around as needed.
Enhancing Your Outdoor Fireplace with Natural Stone
The key to making any fireplace look good is the design of the wall around the fire. Even a top-quality fireplace will look like crap if the materials surrounding it are low-quality. Conversely, a mid-range fireplace can look like a million bucks with a well-designed surround. For outdoor spaces, nothing compares with natural stone veneers for a finish that looks appropriate to its environment. Natural stone veneers come in a huge range of styles, from traditional fieldstone to contemporary linear stones and lots of others in between. There are natural stone veneers that come in panels, for quick installation, and others that come in individual pieces. The more irregular the shapes, the more planning and skill will be needed to finish a wall. If you are a novice weekend warrior, we suggest a linear stone that is easy to keep in rows, so you can focus on keeping it level without figuring out how to fit the pieces together. On the other hand, if you fall in love with a fieldstone or other irregular stone, hire a professional. Note: Electric outdoor fireplaces do not require non-flammable construction materials like stone. We are simply recommending it because it suits an outdoor space and because it stands up to all types of weather.
Don’t Stop at the Outdoor Fireplace – Add a Grill
Now that you’ve gone to the trouble of creating an outdoor space that everyone loves to visit, you need to be able to feed the gang. Did you know that there is a growing range of electric grills? No gas hookups or propane tanks required! Our favourite is the TravelQ Pro285E, an electric grill that you can set up on a stand or place on a tabletop. It can be your primary grill or a supplementary grill when you have a crowd. At the end of the season, you can actually take the TravelQ electric grill indoors and use it in the kitchen all winter. Because it’s electric, and there’s no gas, there’s no carbon monoxide. Imagine having a BBQ party in December!