Coastal Entertaining Yard
An outdoor living renovation in Laguna Niguel built for daily coastal use — stainless and stone outdoor kitchen, glass wind screens, and a structural planting palette around an existing pool.
Laguna Niguel, CA
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What the homeowner wanted.
Design an outdoor kitchen and lounge in Laguna Niguel that holds up to daily coastal use without feeling like a hotel resort.
Site conditions and constraints.
Salt exposure, persistent ocean wind, and an existing pool and deck that had to stay in place through the renovation.
How we resolved it.
A stainless-and-stone outdoor kitchen, low glass wind screens that protect the lounge without blocking the view, and a structural planting palette of agaves, grasses, and Mediterranean shrubs that frame the pool.
How the project actually unfolded.
The homeowners cooked outside four nights a week and the existing built-in had rusted out twice in five years. The wind also made the lounge unusable after about 4pm most of the year. The pool itself was fine — everything around it was the problem.
We specified marine-grade stainless and dense stone for the kitchen, and prototyped three wind-screen heights in 3D against the existing view easement. The homeowners picked the lowest screen that still calmed the lounge, and we tuned the planting palette to anchor the corners without becoming maintenance.
Install ran on the existing pool deck — no demo of the bond beam, no engineering on the existing slab. Phasing protected the homeowners' summer use of the pool.
What changed for the homeowner.
An outdoor kitchen and lounge in daily use through every season, with the original pool and deck untouched. Two years in, the stainless still looks new and the planting has filled in without replacements.
Inside the coastal entertaining yard.
Renderings, plans, and finished views from the Laguna Niguel, CA project — each captioned with what it shows and why it mattered.
More outdoor living work.
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