Creating a cozy outdoor oasis for your home takes vision and flexibility, but it doesn’t have to take a lot of money. Even small, compact patios and balconies are perfect for watching the sunset or gazing at the moon on a clear, starlit night.
Simple, yet luxurious living helps you to get the most out of your personal space.
Flower Up!
Brighten up the outdoors with flowers, herbs, and veggies.Urban gardens are popular for rooftops, patios, and balconies. Plant greenery in variously sized pots, containers, wooden flatbed boxes, and large urns. (Containers should have holes for draining excess water).
Gardens must receive 6 to 8 hours of sunlight per day.
Use potting soil for container gardening; it’s pH balanced and lighter than ground soil.
If ground planters take up too much space, hang a few flower and veggie baskets over railings and on ceiling hooks. Color your patio garden with yellow poppy, salmon coral bells, orangish salvia, bright pink bougainvillea, and purple monkey flowers, just to name a few.
Vertical Gardening
Vertical gardening lets you arrange your favorite flowers and plants on walls or garden shelves. Check out some decorative freestanding shelves or install platforms on exterior walls.
Climbing plants need trellises, frames, fence posts, or mesh lattice to grow on. Wrap ivy or trailing flowering plants around wooden or iron balcony fencing. Wood, wire, metal, and heavy plastics make solid shelving for vertical gardening. Moonflower evening glories are a pretty sight to see when relaxing at the end of the day.
Keep Cool
As much as plants need sunshine, sometimes you need a break from the heat. Patio umbrellas, awnings, sun covers, and draped weatherproof fabric shade the patio on hot days, and let you sit outside on a rainy day.
Adding a fan will not only help circulate the air and keep you cooler, but it will also keep the bugs away and help you save on mosquito control.
Get Comfy!
Spruce up the patio or balcony with some outdoor furniture. Bench seating, wicker chairs and a loveseat, and rocking chairs are good places for puffy weather-resistant cushions. Measure the patio or balcony for exact square footage before buying tables, chairs, and outdoor décor.
Indoors – Outdoors
Another option for cozying up your outdoor space is using indoor furniture that you can move back and forth. Floor cushions, ottomans, benches, and bean bag chairs offer cozy spaces to sit and chill. Pipe some music to the patio from inside or set up an all-weather outdoor speaker.
Stay warm with compact space heaters and small fire pits.
Light the Night
Decorative outdoor lights are mood-enhancers, creating a cozy and relaxing ambiance. With so many to choose from, you can interchange lights each season or as often as you like.
Decorative lights can be just about anything you want, from festive holiday themes to sports teams. (Show your favorite baseball, hockey, football, and basketball fandom with the team’s light globes. Soccer? Maybe that, too).
Fairy lights (also called Christmas lights) work indoors and outdoors. They give off a dim glow, but you won’t bump into anything. Dim fairy lights are also less likely to draw too many mosquitoes.
String lighting comes in strands with many designs to choose from, such as twinkly stars, lanterns, ornaments, fake candles, and festoon globes. Control these lights with an app on your cell phone.
Solar sticks are an energy-efficient addition to your patio, but they do need at least 8 hours of direct sunshine during the day. If the patio sits in the sun, insert solar sticks at the edge of the concrete.
Cozying up your outdoor space is a way to get fresh air while relaxing in style and comfort. With rising housing costs just about everywhere, your so-called dream home may be where you are now. Creating a new outdoor sanctuary may be just the perfect touch your home needs to make it *chef’s kiss* perfect.