Once the weather is warm and the snow melts, you’ll want to spend as much time on your deck as possible. You’ll want to lounge out in the sunshine and drink your morning coffee. You’ll want to bring your laptop out so that you can squeeze in some work tasks while breathing in the fresh air. You’ll want to invite your friends over for dinner al fresco on the weekends.
How can you do all of this when your deck is so small? Read these hacks to minimize clutter on your deck and make the most out of the space this spring.
1. Choose the Right Entrance Doors
Your back entrance doors could be making your deck more cramped. Since they swing open onto the deck, you have to keep everything pushed out of their way—or else you risk banging up your door, your furniture or potentially one of your house guests that’s standing in the way.
A simple change that will improve your whole deck is swapping out your entrance doors for options that are more conducive to small spaces, like sliding patio doors. Sliding patio doors won’t take up any room on your deck when they’re open.
How do you tackle this home improvement? You can start by checking out these backyard door ideas from an exceptional window and door company with decades of manufacturing experience. They can help you find the back entrance doors that match your personal style and fit your small outdoor space.
2. Get Convertible Furniture
Your deck furniture will take up the majority of the space on your small deck. One way to fix this clutter problem is to get convertible furniture — this is furniture that can be rearranged for easy organization and storage. Think of items like folding chairs that can be folded up and set aside when they’re not in use or dining tables that have removable panels so that you can adjust the size based on your number of guests.
3. Mobile Furniture
If you can’t get convertible furniture, get mobile furniture that you can bring inside or move to an outdoor storage space whenever you don’t need it on the deck. The perfect example of this is a bar cart. You can store your bar cart inside your house. When you have guests over for seasonal cocktails or afternoon coffees, you can bring the drinks out onto the deck via your bar cart. Then, wheel it back inside to conserve space.
Your furniture doesn’t have to have wheels to be considered mobile. It just has to be easy to pick up and move.
4. Move Plants to Walls
Don’t let potted plants take up room on your deck’s floor or furniture. What should you do instead? Set up vertical gardens along the exterior walls of your house or your fence. Vertical gardens let you show off your green thumb without taking up any essential floorspace.
Vertical gardens aren’t the only decorating hack you can try. You can also hang window boxes full of seasonal flowers or kitchen herbs underneath your nearest window or attach flower boxes along the outside of your deck railings.
Make the most out of your deck space with these simple design hacks. When you’re done, you’ll feel like you have a lot more room out there.
