Your home is your castle—and it should feel like one, inside and out! But the truth is that this place was likely the most expensive investment you’ve ever made, and as such, you want to ensure that you can enjoy it to the maximum. While most people will begin with their upgrade journey on the inside of their home, it might make sense to start with the outdoor space, especially if you’re the kind of person or family that frequently entertains and enjoys being outdoors as a part of the natural environment.
Here are 7 smart and achievable upgrades to transform your outdoor space into a year-round haven.
1. Create a Cozy Outdoor Seating Area
No matter how beautiful your garden is, it’s wasted if there’s no comfortable space to enjoy it. The best and most straightforward method to achieve garden bliss is to develop a cozy space where you can sit around with those you love, possibly under some kind of protection that enables you to use the space year-round. To get started, you need to ensure a stable and durable base on which you can place all the things usually associated with this, like your chairs, tables, and possibly even an outdoor kitchen that you can use to host parties or just sit back and grill some meat to enjoy by yourself with a cold beer in hand.
Experts say a custom-designed patio can reflect heat, withstand harsh weather, and stand the test of time when built with quality materials, as long as you select the right patio builder and materials for the job. Once you’ve designed your seating area, your next step will be to invest in the furniture you think you’ll need based on what you want to do with the space. However, you go about it, this is up to you and based on your preferences, but just ensure that you choose weather-resistant furniture and invest a little extra to get products that will last more than one summer before they begin to look worn out.
2. Install A Fire Pit For Flair, Vibes, And Warmth At Night
Yes, fire pits are popular—but for good reason, one that is parroted around in most design and landscaping publications. But, while it may be an overused piece of advice, a fire pit is still a great addition to any garden. It’s like saying that a beautiful woman shouldn’t wear the famous little black dress just because it’s so often mentioned!
A free pit adds a vibe to any outdoor space that is difficult to achieve with other methods. While you can utilize patio heaters to achieve heat and a fake fireplace to provide light, nothing quite matches the primal comfort of a real, crackling fire!
As long as you’re sensible and set up a dedicated area away from anything flammable and place it on a stone base (or bury it on the ground), you can enjoy these things all year, and particularly during the colder winter months when the mercury drops precipitously and the nights seem to arrive thick and fast.
3. Add Outdoor Lighting For Ambiance
How you achieve this tip will be based on your space, budget, and stylistic preferences, but the fact is that by adding some light around your yard, you’ll instantly boost the ambiance and charm of your space. You can utilize solar lights that charge up during the day and turn on as soon as the light drops to a certain percentage, or have them plumbed into your mains power to offer a more intense light. If you want to create a more fairytale ambiance, string lights can also be placed around and dropped over features to illuminate and add a sense of whimsy.
For those with a slightly larger budget and who want to show off their property, you can use uplighting against the walls of your home and other features to provide a background sense of effulgence.
4. Create a Year-Round Herb Garden
A herb garden isn’t just for the delicious herbs it produces and that you can use in your home cooking, but it also looks terrific. When you set up the planters and beds just so, Herbs offer both visual charm and kitchen value—beauty with purpose, except they’re cheaper, easier to manage, and provide you with something other than a thing that looks good.
5. Set Up an Outdoor Kitchen
An outdoor kitchen is the ultimate backyard upgrade—impressive and practical, but outside of the fact that you will seriously impress all who enter your yard, it can make sense if you host lots of parties or live in a climate that tends to be more clement for most of the year. As long as you design it correctly and follow the usual safety guidelines so that you don’t blow up your house from a faulty gas line, you will end up with a space that is functional and adds to the overall value of your property.
6. Build a Pergola for Privacy and Relaxation
A pergola might not be your first thought, but it can be your favorite retreat. When placed in the right area and built using a timeless design, they can be solitudes of tranquility. You can use them as a place to escape from whatever happens to be causing you discontent and simply sit and enjoy the nature around you. If you want to boost your satisfaction levels, add a small refrigerator and add in some cans of your favorite beer or bottle of wine, and make sure the wifi can reach you!
7. Create a Wild Garden to Attract Wildlife
A wild garden might look like a bit of a wildcard in this post, but it’s a low-effort way to invite birds, butterflies, and other native wildlife into your yard. The best part? Because they are wild, they will only involve the minimum of effort to maintain and include the occasional pruning or trimming if it starts to encroach on other areas of your yard you want to keep clear.
If your home is your castle, then your yard should be the stately gardens! Using these suggestions can help you to run the space from a dull, flat space where only grass grows into a space of intrigue, enjoyment, and utter satisfaction.
