Americans are spending more time in their outdoor spaces–and want to maximize those spaces. Studies show that nearly 90% of homeowners consider their outdoor areas to be important to their health and well-being. Design trends reflect that people are showing more interest in connecting with nature in their own backyard and enjoying the comforts of indoor living while gathering outdoors. This means creating environments that are comfortable, multifunctional and cost-effective.
The outdoor design experts at Belgard®, the trusted leader in hardscape solutions from pavers to retaining walls, share exclusive insights into 2025 outdoor design trends to help homeowners plan their dream outdoor spaces.
Privacy and spaces of solitude
As property footprints continue to shrink year over year, homeowners are looking for aesthetically pleasing ways to incorporate more privacy from neighbors or their surroundings. Decorative screen panels, pergolas, built-in planters and other structures can add elements of both beauty and functionality that provide a sense of solitude, even in urban environments.
Sound gardens and water features can further enhance a feeling of solitude by adding audible privacy from neighbors or street traffic. For example, even a simple fountain or water bowl can enhance the ambiance and help muffle sound.
Shifting back to classic style
While minimalism remains a popular trend, there’s also been a shift back to a more classic style in indoor and outdoor home design. Mixed materials and warm colors such as beige and
sepia are re-emerging, which lend themselves to
a more traditional aesthetic.
With modular options from Belgard®, a mix of different materials with multiple textures and sizes can create limitless possibilities while keeping with a classic design aesthetic. Because they’re available in many styles, shapes, and sizes designed to work together, a variety of paver patterns can be combined seamlessly to achieve any desired overall look.
Convenience in design
As outdoor spaces are now a must-have for homeowners, they must be convenient to access and offer the same amenities as the home’s indoor spaces. Homeowners are looking for their outdoor space to transition easily from the house to the built environment while offering the same modern conveniences of lighting, eating, Wi-Fi, quality furnishing and accessories.
Reduce bitterness
Life brings us a variety of hurts and wounds. This is just a part of being human. We do heal from those hurts and wounds however, yet some people carry with them the burden of bitterness, anger, even hate and rage at the person who caused the hurt. Such emotional baggage becomes a very heavy load to carry around. One woman discovered this through an unusual suggestion from her therapist. She sought out the therapist because she was extremely unhappy. The source of her unhappiness lay in her inability to let go of her broken marriage. She harbored a great deal of anger and animosity toward her former spouse. Since traditional therapy was not working, the counselor chose a unique approach. At the conclusion of a session, he handed her a brick, saying it symbolized her old relationship. He instructed her to carry it around in her purse for the next seven days.
As the week went on, the woman’s purse seemed to grow heavier and heavier, providing her with a clear understanding of how burdensome the weight of her unhealthy attachments had become. By lugging the brick around all week, she soon understood what the therapist was trying to help her see, namely, that holding on to negative feelings was not in her best interest. Before long, she was ready to relinquish those feelings, and symbolized that healthy act by crushing the brick with a hammer and scattering it into pieces. She was able to let go of the relationship, the excess emotional baggage that went with it, and move on to write a new chapter in her fife.
Reduce self-negating thoughts
Interestingly, the word sabotage comes from the French word, sabot, which means ‘wooden shoe’. In the last century, when a labor dispute arose, workers would often throw their wooden shoes into the machinery thereby damaging the machine. Thus, the word sabotage is now applied to any destruction of factory machines, railroads, bridges, etc. Too many people are guilty of self-sabotage. They view themselves in harsh, negative ways. When it comes to their own unique gifts, talents, abilities, they sabotage their minds by convincing themselves they are unable, unworthy, incapable, inadequate and even incompetent.
Of course, this is never the truth, yet they persist in perpetuating self-negating thoughts. Do your best to reduce and eliminate all self-sabotaging thinking. If you have made a mistake or a blunder or acted ineptly, forgive yourself as readily and quickly as you would forgive someone else. Perhaps this idea from D. Patrick Miller can help: “Never forget that to forgive yourself is to release trapped energy that could be doing good work in the world. Thus, to judge and condemn yourself is a form of selfishness. Self- prosecution is never noble; it does no one a service,” he writes in A Little Book of Forgiveness.
By intentionally cultivating spiritual simplicity, we will experience, on an increasing basis, more harmony, equilibrium and balance in daily living. Life itself will become a greater source of pleasure and joy. Ironically, we gain more by having less.
This article is from the
EY June 2025 Issue