Beautiful Summer Outdoor with 61 Ideas on a Budget For Both Large or Small Spaces

 

Upgrading your backyard doesn’t have to be costly or time-consuming. A few cheap backyard ideas for small yards or expansive landscapes can turn basic green space into the ultimate outdoor retreat. Try these backyard ideas on a budget, including DIY furniture and affordable landscaping tips, to create a yard you’ll love (and never want to leave).

Make DIY Planters

Container gardening adds interesting color and layers to your backyard, but large outdoor planters can be expensive. Save a little cash and create DIY geometric planters. These easy-to-make containers are made from corrugated plastic, costing just a few dollars.

Container Garden Design Basics

Cozy Backyard Ideas

Make your backyard more inviting by piling on pillows to give wood and metal patio furniture a cozy touch. Choose durable outdoor fabrics in bright colors and eye-catching patterns for style that will last throughout the season. To make this backyard idea more budget-friendly, consider stitching together pillow covers from outdoor fabric to recover old pillows.

DIY Backyard Fire Pit

Enjoy warm summer nights spent around a backyard fire pit. You’ll need a few inexpensive materials to build your own, including angled pavers and gravel for the base. This easy DIY outdoor project can be completed over a weekend, and your family can enjoy bonfires for years to come.

Plant Inexpensive Perennials

Perennials come back year after year, which means you’ll save money on landscaping in the long run. A cheap backyard idea for small yards is to fill your flower beds with colorful perennials and watch them bloom every spring. When planting, be sure to complete the proper prep work to keep perennials looking their best.

Grow the Most Gorgeous Perennials with These 11 Essential Tips

Invest Smartly

When looking for backyard ideas on a budget, identify one element to invest in to help you create a yard you’ll love for years to come. Consider spending a little extra on a freestanding fire pit or one special piece of furniture you’ll use regularly. Finish your backyard with more affordable accents, like pillows and string lights, to complete your space.

Living Fence Idea

Try this budget-friendly backyard idea: Espalier a tree to create a living fence for a low-cost, high-end look. The simple technique involves planting a tree and training it to grow in a pattern. The result is a custom look that adds visual interest and texture to a blank wall.

Backyard Furniture Ideas

Outdoor furniture, while made to withstand the elements, can take a beating over the years. Rather than splurge on new furniture, try a few DIY fixes to revive your existing pieces. This cheap backyard idea for small yards will work for larger spaces, too. A once-rusted patio table looks brand-new thanks to spray paint, new strapping, and minor cleanup.

Small Backyard Ideas

Here’s one of the best efficient and cheap backyard ideas for small yards. Employ furniture pieces that work in two different ways. A two-in-one piece, like this bench with a lounger, maximizes space and can be more cost-effective than buying multiple seating options. Alternatively, select backyard furniture with built-in storage to provide additional seating while hiding away accessories that are used infrequently.

Backyard Patio Ideas

Try these backyard patio ideas on a budget to bring style and comfort to your space. For example, consider defining your outdoor living room with a retaining wall, or incorporate an outdoor kitchen for a patio prepped for entertaining. These easy backyard ideas will take your patio from basic to beautiful.

DIY Outdoor Seating

Furniture can be an expensive investment for backyards, but you have options for affordable backyard patio ideas that still look modern and trendy. To furnish your backyard for less, rely on DIY outdoor furniture, such as benches, chairs, and tables. One of our favorite budget backyard ideas uses low-cost concrete blocks, dry-stacked and covered with a foam pad. The DIY bench offers lots of seating in a high-traffic spot outside the home’s back door.

Backyard Lighting Ideas

Outdoor lights remain a perennial favorite for porches and patios with good reason: They’re celebratory and fun, with a warm glow that keeps the light from being distracting. For creative backyard ideas starring string lights, use them to wrap a tree or drape them down a table for a twinkling centerpiece.

Landscape Lighting Ideas for Enjoying Your Outdoor Spaces After Dark

Vintage or Handmade Backyard Decor

Utilize fabric and vintage finds for cheap backyard ideas for small yards or patios. Sweeping fabric curtains—made from yardage, sheets, or other suitable material—add elegance and beauty. Plus, they can shield family and friends from intense rays at key times of the day. Repurpose vintage elements into decorative backyard focal points instead of a more expensive light fixture. Here, nonworking chandeliers are outfitted with candles and trailing vines.

DIY Backyard Accents

For a fresh backyard idea on a budget, make your own accents. Enhance your backyard space by casting stepping stones using quick-mix concrete. This leaf-inspired stepping stone set is one of many backyard ideas that work particularly well in a cottage- or country-inspired garden.

Display a Collection

Collections are often considered high-end or expensive, but a simple gathering of plants in miniature containers can be a great focal point for a backyard. A plain outdoor shelf provides a display area for a low-cost stockpile of succulents and cactus plants. This easy cheap backyard idea for small yards adds a fun pop of color.

Backyard Hardscaping Ideas

Hardscaping is one of the most expensive elements in any landscape, including walkways, retaining walls, and edging. But the stone leftovers at your local landscaping, big box, or nursery supply store may be a less expensive option, especially if you’re looking for cheap small backyard landscaping ideas and don’t have much square footage to cover.

Placed together in a dry stack, stones offer a pretty backyard element that looks like a natural, always-been-there part of the yard. Choose low-growing groundcovers to soften the edges with charming blooms. Bonus: Those perennials can easily be divided to plant elsewhere and help you save even more.

Use Off-the-Shelf Materials

Custom elements quickly increase a budget for backyard landscaping, but creative recasting can get you the same function at a much lower cost. Ordinary concrete blocks elevate lengths of decking to create an easy outdoor bar. The same materials in a different configuration can also create an outdoor dining table, coffee table, or side table.

Vertical Gardening Tips

Outfit urban spaces or blank walls with vertical gardens for an easy and affordable backyard idea. This simple, budget-friendly garden project can be used for growing pretty succulents or even low-growing vegetables. Here, simple boxes made with found wood hang from hooks to serve as a focal point in a backyard.

Choose a Simple Plant Palette

For simple backyard landscaping ideas, rely on a tightly curated selection of plants. Choose a few favorite varieties and get creative with how and where you plant them. To expand your garden, consider dividing plants to cover more ground with growing material.

Choose an Inexpensive Paving Material

If you’re looking for cheap backyard ideas for small yards or big areas with no grass, check out all your options for hardscaping, including less expensive crushed rock and gravel. Gravel provides a more casual surface underfoot for outdoor seating nooks and dining areas. If you use traditional pavers, consider unusual placement—large stones interspersed with vast swaths of grass, for example—to reduce the total material needed.

10-Minute Outdoor Decor

Low-Cost Backyard Seating Ideas

Use this simple backyard idea to instantly elevate your outdoor space: Create zones or separate areas with a few shifts in furniture to delineate eating, relaxing, cooking, and more. This doesn’t require any new furniture purchases; use rugs to shift traffic or styles of chairs to guide people into nooks.

DIY Backyard Ideas

Get creative with backyard ideas that minimize costs and materials; you just need to be willing to invest time and effort. In this backyard, a slatted fence—with the boards spaced a bit wider than usual—helps to reduce wood costs. Oversized concrete pavers replace pricey stone for a patio, while building materials help create the containers and outdoor table base.

Add Vintage Hardscaping Elements

Hunt down affordable treasures and bring vintage style to your space with this inexpensive backyard idea. Many hardscaping elements, such as simple trellises or arbors, can be found at garage sales, resale shops, or flea markets. These outdoor items can add height, define traffic flow, or indicate movement from front to back.

Build Color with Containers

Annuals can be less expensive than perennials and shrubs, and they’re a great way to add color and impact to a backyard, especially when arranged in containers. Matching vessels offer design cohesion, as does a similar color palette for the plants. Another cheap backyard patio idea: A stone slab on top of a lumber scrap makes for a casual outdoor side table.

If you want to spend more time in your backyard, you’ll want to upgrade your outdoor space into a place your whole family will love. But, you don’t need to spend a lot of money sprucing up your backyard. From garden ideas to outdoor entertaining, we share 37 budget-friendly ways to update your backyard.

A Garden Mural

If you have a natural talent for drawing, a mural on a plain outdoor wall can really bring your outdoor space together. This cactus painting brightens up this outdoor dining space while adding Southwestern-style flair. Plus, it’s an Instagram-worthy spot to post pictures of yourself enjoying your backyard.

Stock Tank Pool

Not only is a traditional pool pricey, but it requires a lot of maintenance. A great alternative is a stock tank pool. Here, the_little_homesteader painted an eight-foot round galvanized stock tank with exterior white paint to match her home’s aesthetic, and added a filter, pump and chlorine.

Outdoor Bar Cart

For your next outdoor party, put your favorite concoctions on a wire shelf with wheels. It’s compact, budget-friendly and you can stock and dress it up to fit your personal aesthetic.

Hanging Flower Pots

Finding Lovely

If you love a backyard with plenty of color and lush plants, look to every corner you can to grow flowers including your porch ceiling or your fence. If you don’t want to install any hardware or make any holes in the wall or ceiling, you can easily hang pots of colorful flowers to a fence using S hooks to add that extra pop of color.

Bird Bath Fairy Garden

Both kids and adults will enjoy this summer activity. If you have an old bird bath or large planter, create a fairy garden with your kids filled with soil, moss, yard clippings, and trinkets from around the house. Your kids will love using their creative skills to make a place for all the little fairies.

Cinder Block Firepit

A firepit is a backyard must (especially if you live in an area with a cooler climate), but they can be pricey. You can still gather around a nice firepit by making your own at a much lower cost. To do this, surround a metal firepit bowl with cinder blocks or pavers in a staggered pattern to mimic the look of a nice stone firepit.

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  Colorful Seasonal Pillows

  

  You’d be surprised at how much pops of color can change the entire look of your backyard. Brighten up your outdoor furniture seasonally with bright pillows for spring and summer and more earth-toned pillows for fall and winter.

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  Garden Potting Station

  

  If one of your favorite pastimes is gardening, designating a potting station will help you garden more efficiently and can even save you from back pains. Use an old table or scraps of plywood to create a space to hold pots, planters, soil and gardening tools and make sure the surface is about waist high to make it easier on your body when you’re gardening. Or take a page out of Allie Wilson‘s book and upcycle a pallet into a slim vertical garden center. No storage is no problem—hang your supplies on the wall.

  A Relaxing Hammock Nook

  

  You don’t have to go far to enjoy a quiet sanctuary; you can create your own little getaway right in your backyard. Set up a hammock, and add pillows, string lighting in trees, blankets and even a plate (or basket) of food for when you get hungry to create a place you can quickly sneak away to enjoy some quiet time.

  Hanging Mason Jar Illuminaries

  To create ambience in our backyard for quiet summer nights, completely fill Mason jars or other glass jars with LED battery-operated string lighting and hang from trees using rope and hooks. They’re reminiscent of fireflies, and you can even keep them up year-round as winter decor against a snowy backdrop.

  Upcycled Strawberry Planter

  Strawberries are a favorite crop to grow during summer months. If you have a large barrel or container, it’s the perfect place for your strawberries to thrive. We love this bright blue one that instantly brightens up the yard. To make the pockets for the strawberries to grow, follow this video tutorial from Tim Burrows.

  Backyard Movie Night

  

  Bring movie night home by hanging a large white sheet using rope or zip ties in your backyard. Lay down some blankets and pillows and use a projector (you can get a budget-friendly one that connects to your phone) to watch your favorite movie with friends or family. Take inspiration from Kel Harmer of OhSoKel and take your movie night up a notch with twinkle lights, snacks, candles, and a few glasses of vino—beautiful living at its best.

  Painted Ceiling and Flooring

  ckyard, and it’s one of the most budget-friendly and easiest ways to update a backyard. Paint your patio flooring and ceiling in bold colors to add some visual appeal. We love this outdoor room by Dwell Aware where the ceiling and flooring are painted in contrasting colors.

  Upcycled Bottle Planters

  

  nedjelly/Getty Images

  Next time you’re enjoying a cold beverage, don’t toss the bottle in the recycling bin. Instead, you can fill them with blooms from your yard and hang them using rope or twine all the way across your fence or even hanging from a pergola.

  Symmetrical Mirrors

  

  Bring the outdoors in by creating a living space in your backyard. Add a coffee table, comfortable furniture and even hang furnishings like mirrors to bring a welcoming feel. Simple furnishings like mirrors and candles will make your outdoor space feel like an extension of your home like Allie Wilson Home did here.

  Budget-Friendly Al Fresco Dining

  

  Buying an entire patio set can be really expensive. Instead, you can dress up a budget-friendly picnic table for your next gathering outdoors. Here, southernsudsandsimpleliving dressed up a picnic table with patterned outdoor seat cushions, outdoor-friendly dinnerware and bistro lights hanging from DIY posts set in cement. Lay gravel and add outdoor rugs for a low-maintenance and low-budget patio alternative.

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  Vertical Lattice Garden

  

  No backyard, no problem. You can still grow and display plants even if you have a small yard or patio. This lattice wall by My Bohemian Nest is the perfect place to hang potted plants and other decor.

  Wheelbarrow Planter

  

  For a lush garden, you’ll want to add as many flowers and plants as possible to your backyard. Look to your garden for items where you can add more plants to your space. For example, you can fill up an old, unused wheelbarrow with your favorite blooms or succulents. Bonus: you can move it around the yard to the corner you feel needs dressing up the most.

  Cozy Curtains

  

  It’s always nice to have some privacy when you’re enjoying the outdoors with a book and a cocktail, but depending on where you live, it might be difficult to get that privacy. If you have a pergola or gazebo, hang curtains (you can even use drop cloths for a more budget-friendly option) so you can enjoy some peace and quiet like Kirsten Diane did here.

  A Lush Vertical Garden

  

  dmf87 / Getty Images

  An old screen or wired fence section also works perfectly for a vertical garden if your yard is too small for a traditional one. Use hooks to hang a variety of potted plants. This is a great idea for herbs and other edible plants, so you don’t have to constantly bend down to clip what you need for dinner.

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  A Napping Nook

  

  Giant Chalkboard Wall

  

  Not only is a paint a way to add color to your outdoor space, but it can also bring some fun. If you have an outdoor wall or shed wall, paint it with chalkboard paint to create a giant outdoor chalkboard. You and the kids can spend some time outdoors together drawing and creating on this giant canvas.

  Ambient Lighting

  

  Lighting can really set the mood, and it’s a budget-friendly way to change the look and feel of a room. Instead of hanging bistro lights across a pergola, hang them down like teardrops for a more whimsical feel. If you don’t have anything to hang them from, go for candles and short strands of twinkle lights draped around your seating area.

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  Contrasting Rock Garden

  

  You don’t necessarily need a green thumb or live in a good climate to have a garden in your backyard. You can create a beautiful, lush look with a rock garden. Use rocks in contrasting colors to create a visually-appealing design, and add a variety of succulents and planters.

  A S’mores Station

  

  If you’re throwing a summer night party, a s’mores station around the fire pit is a great way for everyone to have a good time. Fix a plate for every guest filled with everything you need for a s’more: Graham crackers, chocolate candy and of course, marshmallows.

  Upcycled Tea Cup Bird Feeder

  

  If bird watching is one of your favorite activities, you can put out an inexpensive bird feeder by making one out of an old tea cup and saucer, like the one Kastles Vintage made here.

  Outdoor Rug

  

  kirsten.diane / Instagram

  If your patio is just a concrete slab, you can easily dress it up with the right furnishings like a colorful or patterned outdoor rug. You can find many outdoor rugs for a great deal on online stores, or you can thrift one from a secondhand store. We love the way this outdoor rug on this patio by Kirsten Diane pulls the entire space together.

  Easy Wood Walkway

  

  Every garden needs a pathway, but pavers can get expensive. Make a budget-friendly one instead using a combination of pavers, wood slabs and gravel. You can create a pattern with it or add an interesting design to make it more visually appealing.

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  Outdoor Kitchen Island

  

  home_on_the_bluff / Instagram

  Your outdoor kitchen prep area could always use more storage. Add a pallet of wood, paint it and add magnetic strips to hold knives and towel rods to hold other essential items like Home on the Bluff did here.

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  Teapot Planters

  

  Westend61 / Getty Images

  If you’ve run out of planters to fill with flowers and herbs, use different items around the house as plant containers. A teapot works great as an herb container. You can keep it outside on a shelf or place it on your windowsill.

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  Dark Privacy Walls

  ann.living / Instagram

  When you think of a backyard design, you may initially think of bright, summery colors, but if you’re more into neutrals, try darker, moodier colors for your outdoor space. If you have a privacy wall or fence, paint it in black and decorate with neutral furnishings for a polished more refined look like Ann Living’s outdoor space here.

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  Wood Pallet Furniture

  

  afrobohemianliving / Instagram

  Outdoor furniture is expensive, but with a little DIY work, you can have a place to sit and relax in your backyard. You can attach pallets of wood together and paint it in your favorite color and add some cushions to create a sectional, chairs or even a coffee table. We love this wood pallet furniture in Afro Bohemian Living’s outdoor space.

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  Towel Rod Utensil Organizer

  

  Teeravit Tevutipong / Getty Images

  Keeping your outdoor kitchen organized can be a challenge, but you can use your walls to store the essentials. Simply install towel racks and add S hooks. This wall feature works great for decor—hang small potted plants and lights from it—but also storage, for grilling utensils, outdoor kitchen gear, or even pool supplies.

  Outdoor Rug by the Pool

  

  jcdesign1.1 / InstagraNormally you’d find an outdoor rug on a patio or outdoor room, but we love this look of the rug right next to the pool by jcdesign1.1. It adds a boho vibe and creates a relaxing space right by your favorite backyard feature. Plus, then you don’t have to burn your feet on the hot pavement.

  Repurposed Backyard Oasis

  

  Whether you want to create a backyard oasis for a special occasion or for everyday enjoyment, you can look around the house for items to make the perfect, relaxing nook. Here, denadanielle_designs used items from her house to create a backyard oasis. She used safety pins to attach sheets to a hula hoop, and used twine to hang it from a tree. She then added added a faux flower garland to the hula hoop and an old chandelier for a whimsical look.