More Backyard Ideas
Fun in the sun, shade and night!
Get the whole family outside with these fun and sometimes whimsical ideas for your backyard.
DIY a Seating Area
Furniture can be an expensive investment for backyards, but there are options for make-it-yourself benches, chairs, and tables. Here is one of our favorite budget landscaping ideas: low-cost concrete blocks, dry-stacked and covered with a foam pad, offer lots of seating in a high-traffic spot outside the home’s back door.
Drape Overhead Spaces with Lights
Soften the Edges with Vintage or Handmade Finds
Sweeping fabric shades — made from yardage, sheets, or other suitable material — add elegance and beauty to a backyard patio space. Plus, they can be used to shield family and friends from intense rays at key times of the day. In place of a more expensive light fixture, repurpose vintage elements into decorative backyard focal points. Here, nonworking chandeliers are outfitted with candles and trailing vines.
Use Off-the-Shelf Materials
Custom elements easily increase a budget for backyard landscaping, but creative recasting can get you the same function at a much lower cost. Ordinary blocks elevate lengths of decking for a bar-meets-cooking-meets-seating backyard idea. The same materials in a different configuration can also be used to create an outdoor dining table, coffee table, or side table.
Create Low-Cost Nooks
Often the best inexpensive backyard ideas are the simplest: Create zones or separate areas with a few shifts in furniture in order to delineate eating, relaxing, cooking, and more. It doesn’t typically involve any furniture purchases; use rugs to shift traffic or styles of chairs to push people into nooks.
