small balcony design

Small Balcony Styling On A Budget

March 31, 2016

Our balcony is finished! After much preparation, gathering inspiration, creating a detailed plan for the layout, and one very fun DIY, I am pleased to finally reveal the fruits of my balcony labor.

As I previously mentioned, we were working under several constraints, one of which was budgetary. Let me tell you, balcony styling on a budget is no easy task, especially once Spring rolls around and stores are filled with adorable, high priced outdoor living finds. Thanks to my detailed planning I was ultimately able to keep my budget to just under $200 as planned. While this meant I had to make a few concessions (you’ll see one of them below in the form of Lola’s perch), I’m still really happy with how our little balcony space turned out.

Balcony Planning On A Budget

Planning a Small Balcony

March 10, 2016

I have always been a bit of a planner, particularly when it comes to mapping out living spaces. As a child I would draw out floor plans and room layouts in my spare time…you know, for fun. Totally normal childhood behavior, right? Okay so maybe it isn’t the most common of hobbies for a kid to have, but it has served me well on many a move.

Following our most recent move last September I didn’t have an occasion to map out any spaces and I was starting to feel like I needed to get my fix. It comes as no surprise that I went a bit overboard when planning out our balcony. By overboard I mean that I sketched out a basic design months ago and then actually put mouse to graph paper and did a rough mock-up online at Home Styler. The company’s online tools are incredibly straightforward to use and they have a huge selection of furniture you can choose from to add to your space. I stayed pretty true to my original rough sketch and think the below little mock-up turned out pretty well!

When planning our small balcony I took three main things into consideration: the budget we wanted to work with; our lifestyle, meaning how we hoped to use our outdoor space; and the amount of light the balcony gets.

Balcony Plan

Budget: We are not planning on staying in our current home past the end of next summer. It therefore doesn’t make sense for us to invest a large sum of money into the space.
Lifestyle: We have lofty dreams of sipping wine and dining on our balcony at twilight. I envision a little perch for Lola to lounge on during the day. I’d love to have some greenery in our life. So many ideas for such a small space!
Light: You’d think that we would get tons of sun because we are in LA, right? That turns out to not quite be the case. We discovered that due to the layout of our building we don’t actually get much, if any, direct sunlight during the day. There go my dreams of growing rosemary and other sun-loving herbs!

So to recap, we are working with a small self-imposed budget, want the space to serve several purposes and can only put plants that can handle zero direct sunlight out there. It turns out those are quite a lot of variables to work with, particularly when I envision the space looking something along the lines of the gorgeous small outdoor living inspiration I shared last Thursday. In other words, I envision perfection!

If you need me at any point over the next few weekends you will be able to find me crisscrossing Los Angeles between IKEA, Home Depot and various nurseries. Stay tuned for a progress report…

March 3, 2016

When we unexpectedly found out that we had to move last year, one of the aspects of our new apartment that I was most excited about was having outdoor space again! Our previous apartment was the first home I had lived in without some sort of access to the outdoors, be it a yard or a balcony. While I did not particularly utilize such features when I lived in Seattle I did always envision myself having some sort of space to enjoy the Southern California sunshine in once I migrated south. A little piece of the outdoors, even the tiniest of ones, is especially nice to have in the middle of Hollywood.

That being said, between our move, our wedding and our honeymoon, a balcony makeover was put on the back burner. Until now. With Spring in the air and the days getting longer I decided that there is no time like the present to create a little slice of outdoor heaven in the midst of the hustle and bustle of Hollywood.

Being the planner that I am, I have been collecting inspiration for our balcony for months and am sharing my images with you today. What do these spaces have in common? (Aside from the fact that it appears the majority of them exist in picturesque European cities! That certainly helps with the charm factor, doesn’t it?) IKEA furniture, splashes of texture and color, and little bits of greenery, that’s what!

With March in full swing it is the perfect time to get inspired, set my plans in motion and turn these images into my new reality!

This wins the award for the sweetest of spots. Soft blues, crisp linen, teacups, and lavender plants make this a charming little slice of heaven.