10 Simple Ways to Turn Your Patio Into an Outside Living Room This Summer, if You Want a Stylish Yard Without Spending a Fortune
You don’t have to blow the budget to have a fabulous garden – all these easy DIY ideas bring effortless interior style to your outdoor space.
So you're not a landscape designer, huh? But I bet you know plenty about decorating your home! Take everything you've learned from creating a warm and welcoming house outside into the garden, and use your expertise to create a comfy, cozy and stylish space outdoors.
You don't need to spend a fortune to get a great result. Outdoor living has been a growing trend over the past decade, so now there are stylish garden ranges available from everyday retailers as well as luxury brands. And you don't need to style up your entire backyard, either. Concentrate on turning your patio or deck into a hub for outdoor living and it will act as a centerpiece for the whole garden.
Adding some indoors-outdoors style won't just make your yard look good. It'll raise the ambiance and make your garden feel more welcoming, too. Whether you're entertaining or you have friends and family over for a weekend barbecue, expect plenty of compliments from happy guests. Which of these 10 patio ideas for outside living will you try first?
1. Enclose Your Pergola With a Canopy
Adding a material roof to your pergola makes it into more or a room, and there are so many ways to do it, depending on your budget and whether you want shelter from showers as well as the sun. Rolls of reed fencing are a cost-effective solution if you’re comfortable with DIY as it’s easily cut to size and secured to struts. There are plenty of purpose-made pergola canopies, too, so it’s easy to find a good fit whatever the size of your structure, and ties or grommets make installation straightforward.
2. Bring Chic Vibes With a Compact Container Hydrangea
Just as a single hydrangea bloom in a vase lights up an entire room, a living shrub with a plethora of flowers acts as an accent plant to style up your entire garden. No matter how big or bijou your backyard, there’s a hydrangea variety to suit. Plenty have been bred to thrive in a patio pot, so add one in a generous container to your patio or deck and you can practically start calling yourself Martha Stewart.
‘Little Lime’ brings all the delights of panicle hydrangea ‘Limelight’ in dwarf form, its creamy lime-green flowers transitioning to pink in fall. ‘Red Sensation’ is a reblooming bigleaf that only reaches 3 feet tall and wide with crimson flowers, an unusual color in the hydrangea world. Or how about the mountain hydrangea 'Tiny Tuff Stuff'? It only grows to 1–2 feet high and wide so is perfect for a planter.
3. Hang a Pendant Lamp
Hanging a pendant lamp from a pergola instantly brings an interior mood as it mimics indoor lighting traditions. Look for solar- or battery-operated lamps so they’re faff-free to operate, and make sure you understand solar light ratings before you buy: a light with a rating of IP66 will last for years but one rated IP44 will likely only see the summer out. Whether you want a durable lamp or don’t want to waste money if you’re after a one-summer upgrade, it’s good to know what to look for.
Choosing a pendant lamp made of natural-looking materials such as faux rattan or bamboo ensures it feels at home in the garden.
4. Plant a Bowl of Succulents
Building on the houseplant theme, a bowl of succulents on your patio table or next to decking steps is a super-stylish addition. If you're a fan of quick and easy patio planter ideas, this is one of the best! There are plenty of hardy succulents such as Sempervivum, Sedum and Deslosperma, but it’s fun to use a wide selection of non-hardy succulents, then simply overwinter the planter indoors. It’s cost-effective to buy a selection pack of succulent plugs such as this pack of 20 from Amazon.
Succulents need good drainage so are best planted in a shallow planter with a potting mix tailored to them, such as this from Amazon. Bowl planters bring a sophisticated look, but many come without a drainage hole so, if you’re going to be using it outdoors, you’ll need to drill one. Get the drainage right and succulents are one of the most low-maintenance plants for patio pots.
5. Gather Around a Flaming Firebowl
The urge to gather round a fire is buried deep in our genes, so adding a firebowl to your outdoor space calls to our homing instincts. If you want to be toasting marshmallows for s'mores, then you’ll need real flames. But even if you live in a smokeless zone, there are plenty of options on offer that still bring flames into your backyard. Even if you live on a balcony, a tabletop fire bowl will make it feel cozy on summer evenings.
6. Add the Ambiance of Flickering Candlelight
Another way to bring the cozy effect of flickering flames into your garden is with candles. There’s no need to get frustrated with keeping wicks lit on a breezy evening when faux candles are so easy to use. Hang tiny tealights in trees and shrubs, stand pillar candles on your patio coffee table, and push dinner candles into an upcycled candelabra.
7. Fill a Vintage Vibes Planter With Trailing Stems
No matter how modern your backyard, an urn planter spilling with stems brings a sense of opulence and high living that chimes perfectly with an indoor/outdoor living space. Thanks to the arrival of resin planters that mimic the look of metal and stone, they’re a fraction of the price that a vintage urn might cost. Fill with annual plants that you’d normally put in a hanging basket, but choose your best hanging-basket plant based on sun or shade for abundant blooms and a lush look.
8. Bring Luxury With a Neutral Patio Rug
Laying an outdoor area rug on your patio creates a centerpoint, grounding your furniture whether that’s seating or a dining table. Choosing neutral tones means your area rug will be a subtle layer in the whole patio make-up, bringing a hint of luxury but leaving the spotlight to backyard flowers and foliage. And do go big or go home, and buy a rug that covers a sizeable portion of your deck or patio.
Most outdoor rugs are water resistant so you don’t need to worry about showers, though don’t leave them sitting soggy after torrential rain. Those made from synthetic polypropylene are the most durable and are typically washable, with a hosepipe. Rugs made from natural materials such as jute and sisal are best kept dry, for sunny days or sheltered covered spots.
9. Create a Lush Oasis of Foliage Plants
By all means, have plenty of fabulously easy perennial blooms that thrive on neglect. But make sure you have lots of foliage, too. A lush array of leaves has the same effect on a patio as houseplants do in an interior room. And once you start digging into the wonderful world of foliage plants, you’ll be amazed at the variety of leaf shapes, sizes and shades. A useful foliage planting method that landscape designers use is to make choices based on texture.
As well as filling pots, there are plenty of foliage plants with trailing stems that work well in hanging baskets or tall planters.
10. Raise Pots on Multi-Tier Shelving
Adding a set of shelves for your patio plants not only brings lounge vibes but means you’ve got room for more! Shelving also allows you to rearrange pots for an ever-changing display, putting those plants at their peak in the most prominent spots.
Repurpose an old bookshelf or wooden stepladder with exterior paint, or DIY some wall shelves using scaffold boards. If you're buying a new set of outdoor shelves, it's best to choose metal as wooden shelves will regularly need retreating to stop them rotting, and this is a fiddly job with so many slats to cover.
