Apartment Accessories For Balcony, Patio, and Porch
It’s easy to find accessories for the inside of your apartment, but what about for those of us who love stepping outside? The fresh air and sounds of nature do wonders for the mind and body.
Whether you have a balcony, patio, or porch, the more inviting you make the area, the more you’ll be outside.
Even better, it can be fun to decorate this room! It’s unique from the rest of your house. Once you step out that door, you can create a new atmosphere that doesn’t have to jive with your home’s interior.
Accessorizing your patio or porch starts with a vision.
What would make up your perfect version of utopia for relaxing outside?
From there, you can spruce up the area with these ideas to guide you.
1. Pick a Theme
Designing your outdoor room gives you more flexibility than what you choose inside the home. You can have fun, use bright colors, and pick themes you’d never have used in a living room or kitchen!
Before you can start accessorizing, you need to decide how you want your room to look.
Everyone’s idea of an outside paradise is different, but here are some common themes that you can tweak for yourself:
- Vintage – Antique furniture and floral patterns feature heavily in the typical vintage design. You can choose your color palette, but typically romantic colors work best, like pinks, purples, and light blues.
- Minimalist – Strategic use of furnishings mixed with stone, wood, and plants highlights this theme. Stick with neutral or monochromatic color schemes and tone down the accessories.
- Greenhouse – Your patio can truly go wild with a greenhouse theme. Bamboo or other wood furniture slides in seamlessly with flowering and shrub plants that are well-maintained. Your color scheme? You guessed it: a focus on green!
- Beach – Beach themes are fun and frivolous. Flip-flops, margaritas, dolphins, and anything else that reminds you of a relaxing day at the beach fits into this decor. Your color scheme is flexible, usually consisting of blues, greens, and shades of white.
Pick a theme, and get ready to accessorize!
2. Match Your Furniture
Patio furniture decorating is more flexible than your other typical rooms. When you enter a living room, for instance, you can expect to see a couch, loveseat, and coffee table. A bedroom will have a bed, dresser, and nightstand.
But an outdoor room can look however you want it, within the limited size these areas come in most apartments.
Do you want an area where everyone can gather, eat meals, and chat or play a game? Then you should look into outdoor dining sets. The goal of these is to keep your group close together to encourage conversation and camaraderie.
To create an atmosphere of relaxation and comfort, outdoor living room furniture can do the trick. There is plenty of room for everyone, but each person has their own space. Conversation is still possible, but it’s less close-knit than the dining set.
If you want to relax in tranquil solitude, your furniture should be more individualized. You may prefer a comfortable lounge chair with a side table. A sunbed or hammock for resting, reading, and napping are little luxuries, too!
3. Add Some Fabrics
Once you choose your furniture, you can add layers, colors, and texture with fabric. What you use in your outdoor area depends on the room.
Is it exposed to the elements at all? If so, make sure to get indoor/outdoor fabrics that can handle getting wet or dirty.
Accessorizing with fabrics gives you creative freedom! Use your theme to decide what kind of look you want to make, then find matching accessories to decorate areas like:
- Cushions for your furniture
- Carpets or area rugs
- Table runners and placemats
- Wall art
If you don’t want a lot of color and excess in the room, limit your focus to adding comfort instead of decor. But for those who wish to express their personality, fabric is a great way to do it!
4. Use Your Walls
Patios, balconies, and porches tend to be smaller than other rooms in the apartment. Less square footage doesn’t mean fewer decor choices, though. You can still make use of all the available flat space by using your walls to decorate.
Not every outdoor room has four walls.
Easy fix! Install a composite wall on your empty sides. You get immediate privacy and a lot of extra vertical space to decorate, and these walls are easy to remove when your lease ends.
Use your flat surfaces to show off your style. Hang the thematic beach decor you found or start a wall garden!
Now, these walls will surround you every time you step into the room.
Make sure that your choice of accessories work together to give you the mood you’re trying to create.
5. Bring Out Your Plants
Nothing is more natural in an outdoor room than … well … the outdoors!
The sky’s the limit on how you want to decorate your patio, balcony, or porch with plants. Shrubs, hedges, and hanging or potted plants can turn any room into a gorgeous greenhouse or botanical garden.
For a more minimalistic look, stick with potted plants that don’t take up a lot of space. Wood and metal, terra cotta, or stone planters all create a pure, tranquil atmosphere.
Add in a waterfall to house some of your greenery. Then you’ll have all the sights and sounds of nature to round off your room.
Conclusion
After a long day in the outside world, it’s nice to unwind in our comfortable homes. But some people relax best in the fresh air of their own outdoor spaces.
Your patio, porch, or balcony deserves accessorizing just like any indoor room in the apartment — if you plan to use it often. Turn it into your sanctuary to get away from reality, or make it a fun, themed room where you go to get energized.
Whatever you choose to create, the right apartment accessories are out there and ready for you to bring home!