Home & Garden
8 easy verandah décor ideas that won’t break the budget
A verandah is a fabulous addition to your home. It’s a great outdoor room you can spice up to suit an outdoor entertaining space or tone down to encourage a bit of R&R.
But whatever you do, it needs some kind of further dressing up once it’s built to entice you outdoors. And having invested some money in building your new outdoor room, you’re probably wanting cheaper options for verandah décor ideas.
We’ve got you covered. Here are our 8 easy verandah décor ideas, picked out because they’re both simple and inexpensive, yet incredibly effective.
Before we give you the list, we have some quick tips. In decorating your verandah, think about all your senses. Try to cater to fragrance and sound as well as touch and sight.
Also, pick out your colour and pattern themes from the beginning and stick with them for a consistent but elegant touch. Here we go:
1. Cheap pot plants for your verandah
Decorating your verandah with pot plants is one of the easiest ways to give it a touch of colour. And you needn’t go out to your latest (and expensive) home ware or garden shop to pick out the pots. If you allow your creativity to flow, you’ll notice discarded items that can be used for potty purposes: water jugs, watering cans and gumboots are just a few of the many possibilities in your home for upcycling.
2. A careful selection of verandah flowers
If you’ve already picked your colour theme, make sure that even the blossoming flowers on your verandah or porch fit the palette. If you’ve chosen soft pastel hues, go for lavender, orchids, white roses or carnations.
If you’d rather something more bright and lively, choose chrysanthemums, marigolds, geraniums, and pansies. But stick to one or two specific colours so your verandah isn’t so riotously colourful that you can’t relax!
If you’ve already got these flowers growing in your yard, take a trimming and replant it in some healthy, nutrient-dense soil. Then watch it grow and blossom!
Flowers also complete the “smell” component of your verandah. If you go for beautifully scented flowers like lavender or roses, you’ll be ready to unwind amid the intoxicating aroma your decorations will produce.
3. Outdoor pillows to colour your verandah
Humans are naturally drawn to soft and cosy settings, so having outdoor pillows thrown on your outdoor furniture is a sure-fire way to coax you outside to sip your coffee and enjoy the fresh air. But be careful! Though you may be enticed by different materials and patterns, try to stick to the same consistent look to create the best effect.
4. Outdoor rug to soften your verandah surface
Your timber decking or tiles are designed to last in Australia’s volatile weather, but they’re not always the most comfy surfaces to walk on. An outdoor rug adds style and hominess to your verandah (and is a nice place for the pets to rest as well!).
As with outdoor pillows, take care to match the colour, pattern and material of your outdoor rug with your overall verandah design so it looks like it’s always been there – even better, that it was MADE to be there!
5. A bird cage or bird feeder to hang
A bird cage or bird feeder has a dual purpose. Firstly, it creates a great centrepiece for your verandah. Secondly, it attracts the native birds (or you can keep your own), bringing beautiful birdsong to your outdoor room.
The great thing about bird feeders and cages is that they’re commonly available at garage sales, second-hand stores, or online at places like Gumtree. They may look rusty or disused, but an easy clean up and paint job gives you a verandah centrepiece that works well even without the feathered creatures they’re intended for.
6. A mirror to enlarge your outdoor room
If you’ve got a pokey bit of space you want to look bigger, or if you just like big, open spaces, mirrors are a must on your verandah. Hanging from the wall, they’ll reflect the natural light from your garden, as well as the natural beauty you’ve grown there. You’ll have windows of nature both beyond the verandah and into your house!
And the best part? Since it’s outdoors and decorative only, your mirror doesn’t need to be in perfect condition. You can pick up a mottled old thing from a garage sale; often, the more rustic it is, the better it looks on your wall.
7. Curtains for dramatic effect
If outdoor blinds are a bit out of your price range for now, a quick solution is to string airy curtains across your verandah.
Of course, they won’t keep out the wind and rain, but they can provide shade from the sun and the flowing effect they create is so hypnotic you’ll be rested and relaxed in no time.
8. Wind chimes to add charm
At the start, we said it was important to think about sounds as well as sights. Natural birdsong and rustling leaves help calm the mind, but wind chimes add that extra soothing something to set your mind at peace.
And thankfully, wind chimes can be truly inexpensive, especially if you’ve got the time and creativity to make them yourself.
Wind chimes can be made from just about anything. Get the kids together and make pasta chimes with uncooked macaroni and penne pasta. Or if you’re up for a challenge, we loved Freckled Nest’s idea of reusing old cutlery.
Have some verandah ideas of your own? Share them with us in the comments below!
Written by Alex Kuchel. First appeared on Australian Outdoor Living.
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