Landscaping is largely about plants and the ground plane; outdoor living design is about creating rooms. We bring the full discipline of interior design to the spaces beyond your walls — thinking about flow, comfort, materials, light, shade, and how people actually gather, and composing true living rooms, kitchens, dining spaces, and lounges outdoors. We work happily alongside landscape architects and gardeners, but our focus is the livability and design of the space: the furniture, the fire, the shade structures, the outdoor kitchen, the styling, and the seamless connection to your home. The result feels less like a garden and more like the best rooms in your house, with no roof.

Absolutely, and that's exactly the standard we design to. The difference is planning for the elements from the start: performance fabrics and materials that are genuinely comfortable and beautiful yet built for sun and weather, shade structures and fire features that extend the usable hours, layouts that account for wind and privacy, and lighting that makes evenings magical. Done right, an outdoor living room is every bit as inviting as its indoor counterpart — often more so, because you're in the fresh air and the light. Our clients routinely tell us the outdoor rooms became the spaces they use most, precisely because they're as comfortable as anything inside.

Yes, and it's some of our favorite work. A real outdoor kitchen is far more than a grill on a slab — we design proper cooking and hosting spaces with the work surfaces, storage, appliances, seating, shade, and flow you'd expect from a serious kitchen, tailored to how you actually cook and entertain. Paired with a dining terrace sized for your table and your gatherings, it becomes the natural heart of outdoor life, especially in our climate. We handle the full design and coordinate the build, so you end up with an outdoor kitchen and dining room you'll use constantly, not an underwhelming setup you tolerate.

It has to, and it's central to how we work. Designing for a coastal California climate means specifying materials and furnishings that look high-end and are engineered to endure — fade- and weather-resistant fabrics, appropriate woods and stones and metals, and finishes chosen for longevity in sun, moisture, and salt air. We won't put something beautiful outside that we know will look tired in a season; durability and beauty are equal requirements in every choice. The payoff is an outdoor space that still looks gorgeous years down the line, with sensible, low-maintenance upkeep rather than constant replacement.

It varies widely with scope — a styled terrace is a very different project from a full outdoor living room, kitchen, and poolside build. After an initial conversation and a look at your space, we provide a clear proposal with a design fee and transparent budgets for furnishings and any construction, all approved before work begins. We design to a range of budgets and are candid about numbers from the first meeting. It's worth remembering the value: a well-designed outdoor space effectively adds the most-used rooms to your home and makes the most of the climate you're paying to live in, which is among the highest-return design work a home here can receive.

We're based on State Street and design outdoor living spaces throughout the Santa Barbara area — Montecito, Hope Ranch, the Riviera, the Mesa, Summerland, and Carpinteria are all regular territory. This stretch of coast is practically built for outdoor living, which is why we've focused our whole practice here. For larger projects a bit further along the coast, we're glad to travel. If you've got a patio, a poolside, or a whole neglected yard and you want it to become the best room in your house, wherever you are in the area, we'd love to talk.