How’s your yard looking these days? This week, The Escape Home’s Danielle Hyams spoke with our resident landscape architect, Jeff Keiter, about some easy ways to spruce up your outdoor space.
Prefabricated fire pits
The pandemic really got people enjoying socializing outdoors, and with one of these fire pits you can easily extend the outdoor season. “You can create an outdoor seating area with a nice circle of chairs around one of these and you could even roast marshmallows or hot dogs as long as you’re using clean wood,” Keiter says.
We recommend: This Solo Stove is smokeless, easy to transport and on sale for more than $100 off right now.
DIY concrete paver molds
These are an easy (and again, inexpensive!) way to beautify your outdoor space. “You take the reusable molds and fill them up with concrete or clay or another material and let them set,” Keiter says. “You can also add a pigment to the mix for some color. Then you go back and fill between the joints with something small like gravel.” There are a lot of ways to customize the molds and make the outcome look less it came from a $20 Amazon or Home Depot purchase, and if you don’t know how to use the molds, just head to Youtube for a quick tutorial.
We recommend: This fun and highly reviewed pattern.
Screens and decorative panels
“The idea here is having something that’s not a solid fence, wood or metal preferably, that can be used to help both define and decorate a space,” Keiter says.
We recommend: This seller offers several versatile and stylish options.
Kit greenhouses
“The idea with these is that people can grab something like this and set it up and be growing flowers or veggies or whatever they want, but they also create a little outdoor-indoor space to hang out,” Keiter said. “This is something I have been seeing more people using.”
We recommend: On the higher end there is this “Royal Victorian” 8 x 10 greenhouse, but other options start as low as around $600.
Uplighting
“With the widespread use of LED lighting now it’s just cheaper and more sustainable for people to use more architectural lighting at their homes. It can be as simple as a little uplight on different features of your house or property, especially great plants and trees.” Keiter says. You can use white or yellow lighting, but many of the lights have the option of colored filters.
We recommend: These waterproof garden lights are an inexpensive way to play around with lighting to see what you like.