Backyard bars and summer entertaining

Summer is when the backyard really shines.

Morning coffee is sipped on the deck as the sun begins to rise. Meals move outside and leisurely lunches stretch into lazy afternoons. The barbecue gets fired up again, drinks start to flow, the pool cover is rolled back, and the outdoor lounges get a dusting off. The garden becomes the place everyone wants to be.

Friends and family drop by and outdoor entertaining becomes a way of life once again. And there’s no better place in the garden for everyone to gravitate to than a Melwood. Whether it’s set up as a fully stocked backyard bar or a simple retreat where people can relax and settle in for the afternoon, it’s a shady, convenient hub for all of the action. Refreshments on hand, sport on the screen, music playing, lights twinkling as the sun goes down – day and night, it quickly becomes the heart of the backyard.

In this article:

Start with how you entertain

Before you start planning how you’ll build a backyard bar, set up tables for leisurely lunches, furnish your poolside retreat, or create a space to catch the games, take a step back and think about how you actually entertain outdoors.

What do you want the space to do? Keep food and drinks close to hand, rather than ferrying refreshments to and from the kitchen? Give everyone somewhere shady to relax between dips in the pool? Fill an unused spot in the garden that’s too sunny in summer without shade?

What do you want it to be? A place where people can gather, music can play, the games can go on, and you can party into the evening? Somewhere summer afternoons can be spent enjoying good conversation, good food, and good wine? A spot to simply watch the sunset and the stars come out on a balmy summer night?

Start there. Because the best outdoor entertaining spaces aren’t just built and then used. They’re built around how they’re used.

Create a backyard bar

For some, summer entertaining is all about the backyard bar. It creates a natural hub – somewhere to sit and chat in the shade with drinks, ice and snacks on hand. A place to watch the game, catch up while lunch is prepared, or keep the party going after dinner.

It can be as modest or as elaborate as you like. At its simplest, a serving window with a counter, a few bar stools and an overhead awning for shade might be all you need – drinks can be poured inside and passed out to guests for an authentic outdoor bar experience. Inside, just add a drinks fridge, shelving and storage for glassware and bottles, and you’ve got everything close at hand.

If you’d like to make it more of a venue, you can instead set up a fully equipped indoor entertaining space. Think optics behind the bar, stools at the counter, big screen on the wall for sports and movies. If you have the space, you could even add some playful touches, such as a dartboard or pinball machine, perhaps even a pool table.

And of course, you can settle for any kind of setup in between.

Your bar, your rules.

Create a poolside retreat

If the pool is the centre of your summer, it makes sense to set up right beside it. A Melwood positioned poolside transforms the whole area from somewhere to simply swim to somewhere to stay for the day.

It becomes the place to dry off and escape the sun after a dip, grab a cold drink, and stretch out on a lounge before heading back in to the water. Set it up with comfortable seating and a fridge within reach, and no one has to trek back to the house between swims. Stream some summer tunes on the speaker and you’ve created a mini holiday at home. Friends and family linger longer and the pool becomes a relaxing hangout spot for the afternoon and into the evening – not a place to dash down the garden to for a quick cooling off.

It’s practical too. It’s a place where you can store all the things a pool collects – towels, goggles, floats, sunscreen and pool toys – all tidied away rather than scattered across the lawn. Add a bathroom to save the inevitable trips back to the house and the wet feet that trail across the floors. Rinse, dry off and change… all completely contained poolside.

Create a space for long lunches

There’s something about summer that invites people to slow down and settle in around a table. Maybe it’s the longer days, the warmer weather, and the feeling that there’s nowhere else you need to be.

Whatever the reason, a long lunch is rarely just about the food. It’s the afternoon that unfolds around it, the plates passed back and forth, the bottle of wine that turns into two, the conversation that drifts on long after everyone’s finished eating.

A Melwood gives that afternoon a home. Set the table inside with the doors thrown open, or out on the verandah in the shade, and you’ve got a spot in the heart of your garden where you can gather around a meal, away from the busyness of the kitchen. With a fridge, glassware and a few serving essentials close by, you can keep the food and drinks coming without constantly disappearing inside.

And when lunch stretches well into the afternoon, as the best ones do, there’s no need to move. The table’s set, the shade’s sorted, the chairs are comfortable and everyone’s exactly where they want to be.

Give everyone somewhere to gather

The best gatherings are rarely everyone doing the same thing in the same spot.

There’s the group deep in conversation, the kids in the pool while the parents supervise, someone watching the cricket, a couple who’ve drifted off to a quieter corner, and whoever’s ended up in charge of keeping glasses filled. The music’s playing, the barbecue’s going and everyone’s doing their own thing… but you’re all still together.

That’s what makes a good entertaining space work. There’s somewhere to sit and chat, somewhere to stretch out, somewhere to perch with a drink, somewhere for the kids to come and go, and somewhere to retreat when you need a quieter moment. The dining table becomes the games table. The bar becomes the social hub. The verandah catches the afternoon shade. There’s room for the kids to spread out while the adults settle in.

It doesn’t have to be one big space, either. A Melwood is naturally connected to the garden around it, with the inside spilling out into the space beyond. So, whatever the size, there’s room to spread out. Everyone can come and go, find their own little corner, and still always feel connected.

Open it up to the garden

When you’re entertaining outdoors, you don’t want walls getting in the way. You want to feel connected to the backyard and let the festivities flow freely between inside and out.

Glazing is key to removing the boundary between building and garden. Large windows bring in light, frame the view and keep you connected to the action outside. Throw open a set of big, wide doors and the inside becomes part of the garden, with guests moving easily between the two.

A verandah or deck physically extends the indoor space into the garden, providing a shaded threshold that’s neither fully in nor fully out – somewhere to sit on the edge of the action with the garden at your feet.

And the beauty of it is the choice it gives you. On a perfect summer evening, open everything up and let the party sprawl between the Melwood, verandah and garden. When the afternoon sun is fierce or the evening cools, close the doors and stay connected to the backyard through the glass, without losing the view. And if an unexpected storm blows through your garden gathering, head inside – but not to the house. To your Melwood. The garden party can stay a garden party, just under cover.

Get it ready for Christmas

If there’s one day a backyard entertaining space really proves its worth, it’s Christmas.

If you’re hosting a Christmas gathering before, on or after the big day, it’s likely that space is at a premium. The kitchen is at capacity, the fridge is overflowing with more food than it seems possible to eat, there are more guests than usual, and there is one big question on your mind – where is everyone actually going to sit?

Heading outside takes the pressure off, giving the day somewhere to spread out. And a Melwood means Christmas outside can be guaranteed even if the weather can’t be.

And Christmas rarely means just one gathering on the day itself. In the lead-up, there are drinks with friends and family arriving from interstate. After, there are Boxing Day lunches, the annual neighbourly get-together, and those casual drop-ins that are all-too-common at this time of year. With a Melwood, you’ll always have a space to welcome visitors – whatever state your house is in.

It can be the place you host a long lunch on Christmas Day or somewhere for drinks and nibbles when a neighbour unexpectedly pops by. The kids can escape to it when the house gets too full and ‘grown-up’. If family are staying, it can even double as extra guest accommodation.

And that’s really the beauty of having another room at this time of year. You don’t need to know exactly how or when you’ll use it. You just need to know that when extra people, extra meals, extra celebrations and unexpected drop-ins start arriving, you’ll have somewhere for them to go.

Because when there are more people, more food, more celebrations and more time spent together, having more room makes all the difference.

Make it useful beyond summer

Summer’s fast approaching and that might be what has you thinking about a backyard entertaining space now. But it needn’t be the only season you get something out of it.

The destination for long lunches and poolside afternoons doesn’t shut down when the weather cools. With the doors closed, the same building becomes a cosy entertaining retreat through autumn, winter, and spring too. It’s somewhere to watch the footy with your mates. The kids can play games with their friends during any of the school holidays. And it’s always there as an escape from the busyness of the house for an hour with a cup of tea and a good friend. The fridge and the festoon lights stay exactly where they are. Only the weather outside changes.

And it doesn’t have to be about entertaining at all. Between gatherings, a Melwood can just as easily become a home office, an art studio, a teenage hangout or a quiet room of your own, while shifting straight back into entertaining mode when guests arrive.

That’s the real value of having another room in the garden. You’re not creating something for a single season or a one-off party. You’re adding a genuinely useful room to your home, one that gives back every day of the year.

Design a space around the way you entertain

There’s no blueprint for the perfect outdoor entertaining space. The way you entertain should shape the space you do it in. Not the other way round.

If you regularly host big family lunches, you’ll need enough room for a proper table and space for everyone to move around it. If drinks with friends tend to turn into dinner, you might want the kitchen, bar or barbecue close by and a verandah to sit out on. If you want the garden to be part of the experience from inside, the position of the doors and windows can help make that happen.

Tell us how you like to entertain and where, and we’ll help you work out what the space needs to do, how it needs to function and what it needs to look like. With a Melwood, the size, layout, doors, windows, deck, verandah and finishes can all be considered together and then designed around your backyard, your house, your preferences and the way you actually use it.

It can open up to the garden when you want the party to spill outside, then close up when the weather turns. With wall cavities that allow insulation to be added, glazing options and a watertight Colorbond® roof, you can make the space comfortable in more than just perfect weather. And with your choice of cladding, colours, windows and doors, it can look like it belongs in your backyard from the day it arrives.

You’re not starting with a fixed entertaining package and trying to make your life fit around it. You tell us how you want to use the space, and we’ll help shape a Melwood around it, so when summer arrives, your backyard becomes somewhere you actually want to spend it. Not just for that season though – all year round.