High-quality furniture isn’t cheap, and once you add hanging baskets, rugs, flower beds, barbecues, pizza ovens, hot tubs, and other accessories to the mix, the costs just keep growing. But a lack of funds doesn’t mean you can’t renovate your backyard—you just need to be a little creative.
Whether you want to create your dream outdoor space or just spruce up your patio, the following tips will help you to renovate on a budget.
Keep the Wood
If your renovation work requires you to strip wooden decking and fences, keep the wood and use it to create some interesting features. Good wood can be sanded, stained, and treated before being used for all the following purposes:
- Dining Tables: In their most basic form, a dining table is just a plank of wood (or other solid material) that rests on a sturdy base. If you have a large piece of high-quality wood, you can rest it on everything from a stone/concrete block to a tree stump and create your own dining table!
- Decorative Feature: Rest the wood against your home or a garden wall and use it to hang flower baskets, embed flowers, and add other artistic embellishments. It will give your backyard a rustic flair and requires minimal effort.
- Hide Unattractive Features: The wood can serve as a privacy shield to hide things that you don’t want people to see, either for privacy reasons or because they’re just not very attractive. Trash cans are a great example, as you don’t want overflowing trash to spoil the aesthetic of your backyard.
Renovate Old Furniture
If you have some old furniture made from high-quality wood or metal, don’t throw it away just because it’s stained, discolored, or rusted. It doesn’t matter how bad it looks—if there is good wood or metal underneath, it can be salvaged.
Generally, older furniture—along with expensive modern furniture—is built to last. It’s not made from wood fibers and cheap plastic and won’t crumble under the slightest pressure.
Sand it down, use a wire brush to get rid of the rust, and get out the paintbrush to give everything a new coat. Once it’s ready, you have your brand-new outdoor furniture!
It takes time, but the tools you need are basic, and it mostly comes down to using plenty of elbow grease, remaining patient, and getting creative with your old tables and chairs.
Upcycling is big business these days as Americans seek ways to recycle high-quality furniture and stop them from being sent to landfill. It’s a great way to do your bit for the environment and it’ll also help your bank balance.
Turning an old and unwanted chair into something new and useful may seem like a drop in the ocean, but you’d be surprised at just how beneficial it can be.
That old chair won’t be sent to landfill and because it’s made of high-quality materials and receives a greater level of care, it’ll probably last twice as long as anything you buy to replace it (let’s be honest, most cheap furniture ends up broken or neglected within a couple of years).
The result is that fewer chairs go to waste, you save yourself hundreds of bucks, and you potentially influence your friends to do the same. If you do that with all your old furniture, you’re making a massive difference.
Overseed Your Lawn
Turf is expensive. It will give you an immaculate lawn, but it will also destroy your budget and leave little room for anything else. Instead, grab a bag of seed, pick up a rake, and get busy.
Use the rake to turn the soil before overseeding with grass seed and adding a little fertilizer. As long as the seeded area gets plenty of water, it should flourish and create a beautiful green lawn.
You don’t need a lot of money, but you do need to be patient, as the grass won’t grow overnight. It’ll also require a trim once the grass starts growing, making sure it’s all neat and uniform and that you don’t have scattered jungle patches throughout your garden.
Generally speaking, the lawn should be your focal point, if you have one. A well-maintained lawn will draw the eye away from sparse patios and old unkempt furniture. At the same time, a poorly maintained lawn will distract from all the hard work you’ve done on the rest of the garden.
Check Online Marketplaces
If you’re the sort of person who hires a handyman just to change a lightbulb, the idea of upcycling furniture will seem like an alien concept. But there are easier ways, such as buying used furniture from online marketplaces like eBay, Craigslist, and Facebook.
In fact, Facebook is a great way to grab some furniture bargains as you’re buying from everyday people and not from resellers chasing a profit. You can negotiate with them, and, in many cases, you can even get pieces for free. As long as you’re willing to collect the items and have the means to do so, it’s a great way to get cheap or free furniture.
Don’t be deterred by furniture that looks dirty. If it’s outdoor furniture, it will be fairly resilient, and you can clean it and renovate it to ensure it’s ready for your patio.
Plant Perennials, Fruits, and Vegetables
Perennial flowers will return year after year and ensure that your garden is full of color. You will need to prepare the ground and keep them watered, but beyond the cost of seed and fertilizer, it’s more of a time investment than a financial one.
Fruits and vegetables are also a great option. You’ll give your garden some color and purpose, and every year—or a couple of times a year—you’ll have a bounty of produce to harvest.
If your fingers aren’t very green and you’re not confident in your abilities to sustain a garden full of fruits and vegetables, begin with some herbs. Herbs like mint and basil don’t require a lot of effort and can give you an abundance of delicious, fragrant, and strong herbs throughout the year.
Harvest the herbs fresh for maximum flavor and dry/freeze any excess leaves and stalks for later use. Once you’ve gotten to grips with growing herbs, you can move onto root vegetables and fast-growing fruits.
There are few things more satisfying than tucking into a salad made with homegrown greens or gifting baskets of colorful produce to family and friends. It’s also a great idea for frugal gardeners—just think about all the money you’ll save on food!
Make Your Own Seating
A little foam and a few cushions can complement even the most basic of outdoor furniture, including ones that you make yourself.
You can build benches using concrete blocks and sculpt chairs using shipping pallets. Once you add a foam covering and toss a couple of cushions on top, you’ll have outdoor seating that looks great and is perfectly practical.
Use Cheaper Mulch
Mulching will save you both time and money and is essential if you’re growing a lot of flowers and produce. You’ll use less water and have fewer issues with weeds. Mulch itself can be quite expensive, but there are some cheaper alternatives available.
Save grass clippings, shredded leaves, and pine needles to use in your mulch. You should also investigate composting. It’s good for the environment and you can use some of the compost in your landscaping efforts.
Use Cheap Paving Material
Don’t have grass? Don’t worry, as you can use cheap paving material instead. Paving stones provide the most aesthetically pleasing foundation for your outdoor space, but they can also be expensive, especially if you’re paying someone else to fit them for you.
Instead, invest in a few bags of gravel and use occasional slabs of stone, flower beds, plant pots, and other accessories to interrupt the flow and add some color and texture. It’s a cheap alternative to laying turf and it also requires little to no maintenance.
If the gravel lies between your home and your seating area, or it’s a major feature throughout your garden, you’ll need to lay a few paving slabs, stones, or other solid material to create a walkway.
It doesn’t have to be a uniform path—a few steppingstones will suffice. It’s just about making life more comfortable for you and your guests and ensuring that they are not constantly traipsing over crushed stone.
Summary: Renovating Your Backyard on a Budget
You don’t need a big budget to create a welcoming outdoor space. It certainly helps, and a little cash will make your job easier, but providing your expectations are not in the realm of swimming pools, hot tubs, and trampolines, it’s a relatively straightforward task.
For more information, take a look at our guide on budget patio design, which explores similar themes but focuses specifically on designing a patio from scratch.