Greg and Beth Bookwalter’s vacation home in Crested Butte, Colorado, is a study in letting the outside in. The 2,800-square-foot timber frame sits at the base of ski country, and every room was planned to capture the views of the Paradise Divide that surround it. “You feel like you’re on top of the world here,” Greg says. The couple’s goal, in the words of designer Johnny Miller of OakBridge Timber Framing, was to capture every possible view. You do not need a mountain address to borrow the idea. The same combination of daylight, natural materials, and deliberate greenery that makes this house feel alive is available to any homeowner, and researchers have spent decades documenting why living with nature indoors improves mood, focus, and air quality.
Most homes will never see a peak from their windows, but the underlying design logic transfers completely. Bring in light first, choose materials that came from the ground, and then fill the brightest spaces with plants matched to the conditions on offer. Each of those steps is a decision you can make at the design table or on a weekend before planting season.
Start With the Shell: Windows, Timber, and Natural Materials
The Colorado house builds its indoor-outdoor connection from the envelope outward. Natural cedar roof shakes, oak window trim, and stone accents dress the exterior, and because of the mountain location the roof system was engineered to carry heavy snow loads. Inside, solid oak timbers held together with pegged mortise-and-tenon joinery form the frame, with structural insulated panels (SIPs) adding strength and energy efficiency. “You won’t find any bolts or screws or nuts or anything here,” Greg notes. The joinery is how structures were built for hundreds of years.
Materials that come from nature behave differently than synthetics once they are inside. Wood absorbs and releases moisture as indoor humidity swings, which smooths out the peaks and valleys of a heating season. Stone holds thermal mass, releasing stored heat slowly in the evening. Neither needs the finish refresh that painted drywall demands every few years. Choosing wood, stone, and clay products is the cheapest form of biophilic design, because the materials themselves do the work.
How Window Placement Drives Daylight
The great room is surrounded by windows and topped with a vaulted ceiling painted a creamy white, and that white ceiling is a deliberate trick: light-colored ceilings reflect daylight deep into a room. South-facing glass delivers the most light, east and west windows add morning and evening sun, and north windows provide steady, glare-free light for work surfaces. In an open plan, putting the main living space on the brightest side cuts the need for artificial light during daytime hours.
Once the daylight arrives, the brightest zones become prime real estate for plants. A spot within a few feet of south glass suits sun-loving species such as eucalyptus, which rewards the setup with fragrant foliage that can be cut for arrangements. Growing eucalyptus indoors takes strong light, consistent watering, and occasional pruning to keep the plant bushy rather than leggy. Give it those three things and it will outgrow its pot, which is exactly what you want from a plant doing double duty as an air freshener.
Living Walls and Vertical Gardens
Floor space is always the constraint in an open interior, and vertical gardens are the workaround. A living wall turns an unused expanse of wall into growing surface, and the technique works at every scale, from a small framed panel in a kitchen to a full-height installation in a stairwell. The basic recipe is consistent: a frame mounted to a load-bearing wall, a waterproof membrane to protect the structure, a growing medium, and a watering system that reaches the top of the planting before the bottom. How to DIY a living wall indoors comes down to following that sequence carefully, because the waterproofing step is the one that separates a garden feature from a mold problem.
Building a Living Wall Frame
- Pick a wall that gets indirect light for most of the day and confirm it is load-bearing; a saturated wall of plants can weigh 20 to 30 pounds per square foot.
- Install a waterproof membrane over the wall surface and seal every seam.
- Mount a rigid frame with an air gap behind it so the wall stays dry and ventilated.
- Add a drip irrigation line across the top of the frame so water wicks down through the growing medium.
- Plant from the top down, starting with trailing species that will cascade over the lower rows.
Choosing Plants for Vertical Growth
Not every houseplant is built for a wall. The best candidates tolerate occasional dry periods, survive regular trimming, and grow happily in shallow pockets. The table below lists four reliable options and the conditions they need.
| Plant | Light | Watering | Best use on a wall |
|---|---|---|---|
| English ivy | Bright indirect | Even moisture | Fast coverage of large panels |
| Pothos | Low to bright | Let the top inch dry | Trailing over frame edges |
| Spider plant | Bright indirect | Moderate | Fountain of leaves at mid-height |
| Maidenhair fern | Filtered light | Keep soil moist | Soft texture in humid rooms |
Houseplants That Suit Bright Open Interiors
An open great room creates distinct light zones: bright bands along the glass, softer pools a few feet in, and deeper shade toward the center of the house. Matching plants to those zones is the difference between a thriving collection and a weekly funeral. In the bright band, vining plants climb shelves and window frames. Growing ivy indoors is a reliable starting point because English ivy tolerates the temperature swings near glass and recovers quickly from missed waterings.
The plant-count question comes up in every conversation about indoor greenery. A frequently cited 1989 NASA study found that common houseplants remove benzene, formaldehyde, and trichloroethylene from sealed chambers, and follow-up research has confirmed the effect at household scale, with the caveat that the plants have to be numerous enough to matter. The working rule of thumb is one plant per 100 square feet of floor space, which works out to roughly 15 to 18 plants for a 1,800-square-foot home.
Matching Plants to Light Zones
- Bright, direct light (south-facing glass): eucalyptus, jasmine, citrus, succulents
- Bright, indirect light (east and west windows): ivy, spider plants, ferns
- Medium light (a few feet from glass): pothos, philodendron, peace lily
- Low light (room centers, north rooms): snake plant, ZZ plant, cast iron plant
The same plant can shift zones between seasons. A window that blasts in July is gentle in December, so plan to rotate plants twice a year and watch for the signs of stress: leggy growth means too little light, scorched leaf edges mean too much.
Humidity-Loving Plants and the Bathroom Garden
Bathrooms are the most underused growing space in most homes. The Colorado house shows why: its zero-entry shower opens a room that is easy to move through, and a window set high above the tub brings in light while keeping privacy. That high window placement is a pattern worth copying, because it gives plants the light they need without turning the room into a fishbowl. The other gift of a bathroom is humidity. Growing maidenhair ferns indoors is a case study in humidity requirements: the species wants air at 60 percent relative humidity or higher, which is why it thrives in bathrooms and struggles in living rooms during the heating season.
For context, most heated homes sit between 30 and 50 percent relative humidity in winter, and forced-air heat drives the number down as the season wears on. That is bad news for tropical plants and for skin, but the fix is simple to stage.
Raising Humidity Without a Greenhouse
Pebble Trays and Grouping
- Pebble trays: set pots on a tray of wet pebbles so evaporation surrounds the plant without standing the roots in water.
- Grouping: plants transpire, so clusters of pots raise the local humidity a few points for free.
- Room humidifiers: a small unit in a plant-heavy room raises humidity for the plants and the people.
- Misting: pleasant but short-lived, misting raises humidity for minutes, not hours.
The bathroom does the humidity work for free. If a fern lives near the shower, its weekly soak lines up with the family’s bathing schedule, and the plant gets the moisture spike it needs.
Overwintering Garden Plants Indoors
The indoor-outdoor loop runs in both directions. Plants that spend summer on a patio or in garden beds can come inside for the cold months, which extends their life and keeps the house green when the ground is frozen. The transition has to be managed, because an outdoor plant carries pests and has adjusted to harsher conditions than the living room offers. Overwintering garden plants indoors follows a five-step sequence that takes about three weeks from start to finish.
The Five-Step Move Indoors
- Inspect and treat: check stems, leaf undersides, and soil for pests two weeks before the move, and treat with insecticidal soap if needed.
- Pot up: transplant garden plants into containers with fresh potting mix and drainage holes.
- Harden off: move plants to a shaded, sheltered spot outdoors for a week so they adjust to lower light.
- Move inside before the first frost, placing plants in their winter light zones right away.
- Cut back watering and feeding for winter, then reverse the sequence in spring.
| Step | Timing | Key detail |
|---|---|---|
| Inspect and treat | Two weeks before frost | Check leaf undersides for mites and aphids |
| Pot up | One week before frost | Use fresh mix and clean pots |
| Harden off | Seven days | Shade outdoors first, then partial sun |
| Move indoors | Before first frost | Match plants to their light zones |
| Spring reversal | After last frost | Re-acclimate before full sun |
Fragrant Additions and a Year-Round Rhythm
Watering, Rotating, and Refreshing
Scent is the final layer of the indoor-outdoor experience, and it is the easiest to add. Growing jasmine indoors rewards the grower with winter blooms, provided the plant gets bright light, water when the top inch of soil dries, and cool nights in the 60s during fall, which triggers bud set. The same seasonal rhythm governs everything else on this list: plants need more water in the growing season, less in winter, and a fresh layer of potting mix each spring.
Set a weekly watering check, rotate the pots a quarter turn on the same schedule, and reassess light zones twice a year. The house that results reads as alive in every season, whether it looks out on the Paradise Divide or a suburban street.