If your lifestyle includes entertaining and spending time outdoors with friends and family throughout the year, a Mexican-inspired patio seems a perfect match. Enrich your outdoor living space with vivid colour, warmth and a rich mixture of cultural Spanish Colonial and Moroccan changes within this free-spirited decorating style.
Earthy Materials
Begin your Mexican makeover with a foundation of earthy materials such as adobe, clay tiles, terra-cotta stone and marble wood. If feasible, a continuous tile floor starting indoors and emerging out onto the patio creates a seamless transition between indoor and outdoor living spaces. Get the look with ceramic tiles in warm reds, rust or browns or go with clay, stone or terra-cotta tile flooring. If you have a concrete foundation, color and postage the concrete to mimic ceramic tiles. An outdoor chiminea or kiva fireplace made of adobe or stucco adds an authentic touch. Alternately, encase a barbecue grill with natural stone, stucco or decorative tiles. If your backyard is large and open, then give it the sense of a more intimate courtyard by constructing a stucco wall and including a wood trellis covered with flowering vines.
Water Attributes
A significant element in creating the sense of a Mexican courtyard is a outdoor fountain. Wells and drier are natural gathering areas in the warm climate of Mexico. A multitiered circular fountain creates a stunning focal point and provides the soothing sounds of running water. Embellish a concrete wall fountain with vibrant hand-painted Talavera tiles. If space and budget permits, a built-in pond with a waterfall surrounded by lush greenery makes a stunning addition to your Mexican-themed garden.
Rustic Furnishings
For a rustic, Mexican feel on your terrace, supply the room with Mexican equipale furniture made of cedar strips and tanned pigskin. Equipale barrel chairs, sofas, lounge chairs, end tables, coffee tables, bar stools and pub tables all feature a signature crisscross design underneath the leather pigskin upholstery. Alternately, use wrought-iron furniture topped with brightly colored cushions and pillows that include bold striped patterns or drape colorful Mexican blankets and serapes over sofas and chairs. Incorporate side tables topped with Talavera tile and find a cozy place to hang a vibrant Mayan hammock.
Accents and Accessories
Bring a south-of-the-border texture to your outdoor living room with big, oversized terra-cotta planters full of palm plants, fruit trees, bougainvillea, bromeliads and cacti. Incorporate woven rugs with vivid colours and intricate patterns. Accent tables with clay or ceramic luminaries or embellish terrace walls with tin or clay wall sconce lighting elements. Add rustic lighting with wrought-iron lanterns and chandeliers or Moroccan lanterns. Make an aesthetic fiesta for the eye with colorful Talavera flower pots, wall art and tableware. Add an ethnic look to tiled patio measures with Talavera tiles on stair risers or use them to accent a stucco wall. Bold hues of blue, green, yellow or red painted on wood doors, trim or a covered terrace roof dials in the character and charm of a Mexican-inspired outdoor room.