If you're lucky enough to live in a rural location, you will want to take advantage of mother nature and try to blend your life accordingly. As you renovate your home with this in mind, you will want to create a seamless transition between the inside and the glorious outdoors. In order to create such a continuous flow, you have to use appropriate products as part of your design and what's more natural or appropriate than timber? How can you best achieve your goals with this marvellous material?

Maximum Exposure

If you're lucky, your house will orient towards the north or northeast, so you can really take advantage of the sun's energy. You should try to install floor-to-ceiling bifold doors and windows here, which you can fold out of the way on a nice day. This will provide the maximum amount of exposure to your living quarters.

Can't See the Join?

To take full advantage of this situation, make sure that you select some hardwood timber and that the dimensions of your outdoor boards are identical to those inside. When you lay them down, you will be able to create an almost seamless transition that is only punctuated by the door tracks that go from side to side. If you do this right, everything will be perfectly symmetrical, and colour coordinated.

Plan to install your boards very carefully so that any odd lengths are located further inside, rather than next to the boundary to get the full effect.

Installation Tips

You must make sure that you acclimatise the wood to the environment before you install anything and will have to employ a different approach for the inside versus the outside. Ideally, the indoor timber will be delivered a week or so ahead and kept within the property to acclimatise to the interior moisture content.

Clear an area in a separate room and allow the wood to lie in an elevated position so that it has a natural flow of air around it. It will then contract or expand in accordance with its host condition and be ready to install. If not, you may find that the final result is not as good as it could be with imperfections, cracking or loose boards.

As you're getting ready to install the boards outside, remember that they need a sufficient amount of ventilation beneath as well so that they can dry out properly after it stops raining.

Getting Your Stock

To achieve the perfect result, make sure that you buy the best quality timber products you can find and take the advice of your suppliers as needed. For more information, contact a supplier that has timber for sale.