The holidays are here and there’s no better time to transform your porch or patio into an outdoor oasis. Why wait until the spring or summer to enjoy your outdoor living area!?  It’s the perfect time of year to snuggle up in your fave blanket and enjoy a hot toddy (or three — let’s be real.)

The holidays are here and there’s no better time to transform your porch or patio into an outdoor oasis.

My husband and I bought a new home this summer and we’re just now getting around to fixing up the screened-in porch. We both love spending time outside, and we’re really looking forward to having a living space outdoors where we can hang out and relax. Obviously, we didn’t want to spend an arm and a leg on things we’re keeping outside, so I came up with a design that’s budget-friendly but still comfortable and livable. (I know, we all hate the “BWord”, haha … but it’s a necessary evil.)

We have a lot of things on our “house wish list”, and it’s hard to keep ourselves from going out and buying everything all at once! Rather than go without furniture while we move through our wish-list, I’ve found it’s a more realistic compromise to come up with lower cost solutions for some of our top wish list spaces. Ultimately, I looked for items I could use temporarily as a place holder for our higher ticket, drool worthy “forever” furniture pieces.

For this particular space, I wanted something cozy and suited for entertaining a couple of friends or enjoying our morning coffee (or, more importantly, our evening cocktails.) Since our house is kind of close to the neighbors next door and we’ll be spending a lot of time on the porch, I also wanted to give us (and them) a little privacy. The peekaboo water-view from our porch is really pretty, so I didn’t want to permanently block the view. I thought the best solution would be to install window drapery rods around the entire perimeter and add canvas panels on clip rings so we could move the panels where we wanted to add privacy or block the sun.

I found some great drapery rods and rings from Walmart and, believe it or not, painter’s drop cloths are a great solution for drapery panels! They come in 6 foot x 9 foot or 9 foot x 12 foot sizes. I chose the 6’x9’ size for this particular space. I didn’t want the panels to drag the ground since they would probably show dirt from the dust outside. If you’re using them indoors, you can hang them with the 9’ length and puddle them though.

Next, I added a simple outdoor rug from Lowe’s for under $20. It gives just enough of a contrast from the dark wood floor of the porch and is much cozier to walk on.  Four tan plastic Adirondack chairs from Ace Hardware give us relaxed seating for four people without breaking the bank, and a 3-pack of cocktail and end tables from Coaster Furniture finishes off the furniture for the space. After adding a few personal accessories and a small TV/Roku we already owned, we’re ready to entertain outdoors and enjoy our view. The best part – with less than $500 spent, I was able to buy everything we needed to completely transform the space! More money for champagne!

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