This Month’s Design Tip

Many homeowners are seamlessly combining outdoor entertaining with indoor living to enhance their lifestyle and the value of their home.

Using quarry tile in Mediterranean colors both on the patio and inside the kitchen is one of the best ways to accomplish this. The effect is an indoor/outdoor kitchen where Dad grills the salmon while Mom makes the polenta and both can watch the kids play in the back yard.

And have you ever noticed that most guests congregate in the kitchen at dinner parties? It's nice chatting with them while you're cooking but you can keep them from getting in your way by extending your kitchen outdoors and turning the evening into a starlit soirée! Guests have more room to move and mingle and you can still chat with them along the way to the patio.

Enclose your patio in glass or wood, install some heat lamps, and you have a perfect year-round entertainment area. Ever pictured a Thanksgiving meal while looking out the window at the fall's golden colors?

Tuscan Red, California Saltillo and Spanish Terracotta are just three of the tile colors that can bring the outdoors inside to take advantage of long summer evenings and extend the short winter nights.