6 Easy Ways to Style Your Outdoor Living Areas

We focus a lot on our homes and interiors. Every holiday season we give them a spruce-up, bring in new elements, and decorate them to the best of our ability and imagination.

We do keep our porches, patios, front yards, backyards, decks, and balconies clean, but don’t really put a lot of thought into how we can enliven those spaces. The outdoor sitting areas are rarely on the top of our minds.

And that is a crying shame because these hold so much potential to make our homes look stunning. Here are six ways to add oodles of personality to your outdoor living areas.

Deck it up With Lace Curtains

How do you like your porch? Vast and open so that you can soak in the sun and enjoy the wind without any obstructions? Or do you like it to be shaded in places so that it can make for a great sitting area, especially when the elements are in full swing?

Curtains can accomplish so much. They can shade you from the sun, enhance the aesthetic appeal of your porch or patio, as well as look stunningly beautiful.

We’d suggest thin lace curtains in summery colors (depending on the season, and also where you live). Yellow and lilac come to mind immediately. Let them flow in the breeze, or act as filters for the afternoon sun. You’ve hardly made any change to your décor and it already looks ravishing!

Apartment-dwellers can use these curtains for their balconies.

Go All Wood and Stone

If you like your porch and backyard rugged, this should be a very appealing theme. What could be earthier than wood and stone? We have evolved with them, haven’t we? They exude coziness and warmth, and make us feel right at home wherever we may be. They are also very easy to clean and take care of, a happy marriage of great looks and convenience.

That fireplace is the icing on the cake!

Give Your Deck a Nautical Theme

There’s something amazingly lovely about white and blue stripes.

Add a bit of red to the mix and the décor just comes alive. It’s reminiscent of a glorious day at the sea, of white yachts cruising down blue waters under open skies.

You can create that experience on your deck with white lounge chairs and a blue table. If you already have good wooden furniture and don’t want to replace it, consider painting it in nautical colors or buy a table cloth and cushion covers in white blue and red. Only matte shades though.

There are many ways to introduce these colors into your décor, but the main thing to keep in mind is to make sure none of it looks crowded. Less is more with this effect.

Lay out a Fake Grass Carpet

Want the greenery and freshness of natural grass but without any of the accompanying hassle? Call an artificial lawn company for a few strips of grass to glamorize your deck, or even your porch.Refer to the images below for a good idea of how this will look.

Natural grass is great too but it’s not a good idea to bring it into your home. With artificial grass you get all the positives of the natural grass but not its negatives. It will require little-to-no maintenance, stay forever bright, and is easy to clean.

Synthetic grass will also make for a great backdrop to all kinds of furniture. But if you want to create an effect that stands out, opt for bright-colored furniture to lay over this grass. A glistening white lawn chair, again, is a failsafe option. You can also consider bright green, pink, or yellow furniture.

Perk It up with Lampshades and Wind Chimes

If you happen to live in a place where you get plenty of wind and gorgeous sunsets, we envy you deeply.

You absolutely must have a wind chime or two hung on your porch for melodious sounds to waft in and out of your home all through the day.

Even apartment dwellers can give this a try and hang wind chimes along windowsills or in their balconies for a calming and mellifluous effect. These are available in many varieties. You can even create one on your own!

Lampshades too are a great addition to a deck or a porch and can light up your evenings in brilliant colors. Red, blue, pink, white, golden, purple, try a number of colors, and opt for lights that emit a soft glow.

Introduce Some Eastern Flair

The East is vast. It’s an endless source of inspiration for design lovers. Pick any country from that big part of the world and find out a few elements that you can introduce in your home décor.

Here are some options to get you started:

  • Cushion covers in Turkish designs
  • An oriental carpet
  • A wooden diwan
  • An Indian chandelier
  • A swing
  • An incense holder (with burning incense sticks in it)

Scented candles and glass bowls with flowers will also impart a lovely touch to your porch, though these are not necessarily Eastern in essence.

Conclusion

Hopefully some of these suggestions have taken your fancy and you want to give them a shot. At any rate we are pretty sure you will never again look at your outdoor living areas with indifference. If you have any suggestions of your own, do leave a comment and let us know!