Seven ways to upgrade your outdoor living area for spring.
A new season
Ushering a new season, and the promise of more sunshine to come, should be an exciting moment for your home too. Many of us focus on upgrading our indoor spaces, bedrooms, kitchen, or even our home office, and neglect to upgrade the very space we’ll be spending more time in this coming season: our outdoor living space. It’s time to upgrade, revamp, and redo. Here are seven ways you can spruce up for spring, with a new outdoor living space:
Pick a palette
Your outdoor living space is often an afterthought, where you’ll use what you have to furnish it, or get thrifty on the budget when looking to upgrade your furniture. You can stick to being budget-friendly, even while restyling for spring. Set aside a small budget and pick a colour palette for your outdoor living space. We recommend:
- Find the right palette: Find a colour palette that creates a light ambience for your outdoor living area, or enables you to create a great contrast. Dark coloured cushions are often preferred for outdoor living areas, because they dry faster, but their colours and tones may fade more quickly, owing to sun exposure.
- Think about your selection: Once you’ve picked a colour palette that you love, consider how managing it will affect your evening and daytime routines: Will you need to bring items in every evening? Is your colour palette versatile enough to carry through one or two seasons?
- Test your selection: Before you start painting and upgrading, grab a few swatches from your hardware or paint store, and test your selection against your home’s exterior walls and furnishings. That may help settle your decision, if you’re not sure which colour palette will be perfect for your outdoor living space.
- Apply the palette: This is where it gets fun! Once you’ve selected your outdoor living colour palette, bring it to life by having new cushion covers made, respraying outdoor furniture to match it, selecting new table linen, and considering fun additions to your garden that’ll work with it.
Shelving and sprucing up
Adding shelves to your outdoor living space can seriously help with handling the clutter that seems to accumulate whenever you spend time outdoors. Open shelving situated close to your braai area can be a lifesaver, and provide an easy to reach spot for utensils, crockery, and other essentials. You can also use outdoor shelving space for displaying weather-hardy ornaments, decor, or mementos.
Doing it for the ‘gram
Nowadays, if it’s not on Instagram, it didn’t happen. Creating an ‘instagrammable’ space in your outdoor living area needn’t be difficult, nor bust your budget. If you’re looking to create a space specifically for the ‘gram, consider:
- Screening: A beautiful screen makes a lovely backdrop. Repurpose an old room divider for this, and use it as a space to decorate, or bring home a theme for your next garden party or get together.
- Feature wall: Creating a feature wall in your outdoor living space can be fun. Paint a great mural, or let the kids loose to decorate it in a striking way.
- New additions: Break up the monotony of bare garden walls by adding new additions to your outdoor living space that reflects your chosen colour palette. Consider adding new plant pots, cute signage, or similar, to your outdoor living space.
Save your space
There’s another way of dealing with bare walls that could help you save space in your outdoor living area too: a vertical garden. They’re relatively easy to DIY, or you can purchase a pre-made vertical garden framework from your local nursery or hardware store. A vertical garden can also create a beautiful backdrop for your dream ‘instagrammable’ space. If you’re keen to stick with a theme, consider colour-matching the plants in your vertical garden with your outdoor living space colour palette. Ask the team at your nursery for their advice and guidance on what plants would work best with colour palette and this new season.
Light it up
The days are getting longer, and the sunshine sticks around for a little while, so lighting may not seem like a priority right now. Upgrading your outdoor living lighting, however, is always a good idea. Lighting up your outdoor living area means you won’t have to worry about stumbling around in the dim light while cleaning up after a party, and it’s an essential for improving your home’s security too.
Don’t stop decluttering
Marie Kondo has all of us folding our shirts differently, but if your outdoor living area is not ‘sparking joy’, it’s time we took her tips to this space too. Gardens and outdoor living areas are famous for their clutter, but it’s easy enough to organise and store the essentials in attractive ways. Find weather-hardy storage solutions that match your chosen colour palette, and declutter with delight. Hosepipes, pool equipment, compost bags, gardening tools, and more, can be stored out of sight, but kept easily accessible.
Add-ons for your pets
Don’t forget: your pets could use an upgrade too! If you’re trying to think of new ways to keep your pets entertained, warm, and dry, consider:
- Installing new kennels for your dogs, or repainting the ones you have for them to use during the day. Paint your dogs’ kennels using the same colour palette you applied to your outdoor living area theme.
- Considering a catio: Adding a catio to your home means your cats can enjoy the outside world, without actually leaving the house.
Now that your outdoor living space is ready for spring, there’s just question left to answer: Who to invite for your first spring dinner party?