An outdoor dining area is an enviable highlight of any home and can be enjoyed regardless of the size of your backyard or space. When setting up outdoor dining for two or more people, a combination of the right furniture pieces can help to create a cozy dining area that soon becomes a favorite spot in your home.

Whether you’re looking to host guests often, to enjoy dining outdoors solo, or with family; you can achieve that without going overboard with your budget. Want to know more about how to achieve your ideal outdoor dining area? Let’s get started.

 

How to set up a home dining area in your outdoor space

 

There is a set of outdoor dining tables and chairs on the terrace with the entrance

 

A home alfresco dining space is a fun project to embark on, as it soon becomes a favorite part of your home for creating long-lasting memories. Here’s a guide on how to get started.

Choose an area accessible to your kitchen

Locating the right place to position your dining area can be tricky, especially if you have a large backyard or patio. It’s important to prioritize proximity to your indoor kitchen, such that food items can be easily moved in and out of your kitchen without stress. To achieve this, choose a space that’s as comfortably close to your kitchen door as possible.

Also, if you have an outdoor kitchen, ensure the dining area isn’t too far off nor is it uncomfortably close to the cooking area. One thing is sure, you don’t want your guests getting choked from cooking fumes or getting smeared with all the smoke from cooking different spices.

Neighborhood comfort

If you’re hosting a lot of chatty friends or cooking up a storm often, then it’s only ideal that you choose an area farthest from your neighbor’s property. This allows you enough room to enjoy a perfect dining atmosphere regardless of the time of the day, without upsetting your neighbors. If you’re situating an outdoor kitchen, this should also be a matter of concern as well. This also eliminates the possibility of outsiders choking on the spice or getting hungry from the flavor of your food.

Comfortable dining furniture

Having the right dining furniture set can help to improve your outdoor dining experience and the wrong one can make it difficult to enjoy. To decide what’s good for everyone choose a patio dining table that’s tall enough to sit around comfortably. This means the elbow-to-surface distance must not be uncomfortably close or hard to reach. If you have the elderly and children living with you, it is important to factor them in if you’ll be dining outdoors frequently.

The chairs must be just right as well, and comfy enough to support the back and knees especially if you’d love to have people sitting around and gisting long after the food is finished. Often the best option is to separate your dining area from your conversation area, as different furniture pieces help to serve this purpose. With this, people can have a good place to relax with their drink and chat after enjoying a tasty meal.

Don’t forget to set up your outdoor space based on how many people would be using it. You don’t want to invest in a set that would be too few to seat guests, hence it’s better to have extras than not enough. This will largely depend on your desire to host lots of people often, or if you enjoy spending time in the company of that favorite person.

In all, it’s important to consider the space available to you, when working on your dining set. You can work with two bistros and extra armchairs, and if space isn’t a challenge, you may choose to go for entire dining sets.

Outdoor shelving unit

Dining outdoors may bore you if you always have to move plates, cups, cutleries, and other utensils outdoors every time you want to use them. It can be even more annoying if you plan on dining outdoors with family every other night. To ease the stress, it’s best to have an outdoor storage option such as a shelving unit that can hold all the items you need and keep them within easy reach. It makes the work less cumbersome and makes it easy to enjoy.

Scale things up with an outdoor fridge that would be great for storing drinks, perishables, and other food items that may be needed outdoors. This helps to save a lot of time on having to prepare all of those items from your indoor kitchen.

Shed for daytime dining

Get your space all set up for daytime dining by installing sheds around your dining area. Of course, sitting in the blistering heat of the scorching sun isn’t an enjoyable experience. To eliminate the chances of this, consider installing an outdoor umbrella on your patio or a permanent wooden shed that adds an aesthetic flair to your outdoor space.

A shed is one element that ups your outdoor dining experience and sets it up to mimic the arrangement of an outdoor restaurant from a favorite vacation spot.

Fire pit and fire table for warmth

Fine outdoor dining is great if you have a fire source for warmth like a fire pit table or a fire pit. For an ideal table surface warmth, a fire table is great if you have one. Set your food and drinks around the table and enjoy fine dining with loved ones while keeping warm by the fire table on cool evenings.

Thanks to versatile fire pit table designs, you can enclose the fire area for more dining surface when the fire is not lit. An even more relaxed approach to warm dining is to have a patio sectional with fire pit where you can share a pack of pizza or a platter of snacks with family or friends.

Scented candles and fumigants to keep insects at bay

Beyond the food and drinks, having an ideal patio or backyard to enjoy your food can make your dining experience a memorable one. With insects and flies buzzing around your food, you might easily get frustrated dining outdoors or have to rush indoors for cover. To avoid this, ensure a proper clean-up of your backyard or use some fumigants days before, where necessary. Doing this keeps your space in shape for an enjoyable dining experience. Another way to achieve this is to set up scented candles that repel insects, this helps to keep your space relaxing and warm while getting insects out of your food and face.

Poolside dining

A thrilling way to enjoy dining outdoors with loved ones is to set up dining by a calm poolside. The charm of an evening dinner by a relaxing pool view is hard to resist. Get your bistro table and chair all set, put up string lighting or hanging lights around the area and of course don’t miss out on the opportunity to decorate with a nice scented candle to keep your dining area picturesque.

Even the glow of the lights against the pool can add a thrilling charm to your dining area. The ambiance makes it an unforgettable experience for that special person or one that you can always look forward to creating with a couple of friends as well. Dining outdoors can help to create a feeling of closeness and intimacy and help you bond better with your loved ones over time.

 

Ideas for an even more interesting outdoor dining

 

Rattan tables and sofas were placed in the doorway, with the sun shining on them

 

Truly the dining experience is all about the food and the drinks, but you can decide to take things even further to make it one that everyone always looks forward to. Here are some ideas:

Crack jokes and riddles

Light-hearted jokes can easily help everyone ease into the occasion, especially if the food is still being prepared. Instead of sitting at the table and just pressing phones, taking turns to crack jokes and riddles can add an exciting flair to the experience.

Make drinks together

Make the dining experience fun by getting everyone to make the cocktail together. Even if you’ll be serving homemade fruit juice, it’s even more fun having everyone play a role in cutting up the fruits and getting the juice ready.

Bring on music

Tone up the ambiance by playing music that’s right for the occasion. Even if it’s a gentle piano tune playing softly on the speakers it can make a great deal of difference. You may decide to do some karaoke after dining as well, or just have someone give a nice solo while another person hits the guitar strings.

 

Conclusion

 

A wooden table and chair are placed outside the door

 

Enjoying a relaxing outdoor dining experience with a loved one or a group of friends is something to put on your bucket list if you haven’t. With all the dining furniture, a picturesque location and intentionality on your part, a simple evening dinner could become an unforgettable experience to relieve right on the patio of your home as often as you want.