This Renter-Friendly Balcony Transformation “Feels Like a Garden Oasis”
There are lots of clever ways to make an apartment balcony feel a little more secluded — like it’s your own little outdoor oasis. You can add a privacy screen, hang curtains, and fill your space with furniture for relaxing.
Renter Sandy Saintilus (@myuglyapartment) thought of two clever ways to make her balcony feel a little more special: She created what she’s dubbed a “garden ceiling” and a “rug wall.” Both transformed somewhat blank, ugly surfaces into something that feels a little more special.
“I knew there was an opportunity to turn the balcony into a space I’d enjoy because it did have key features that were worth saving,” she says. She liked its tall ceiling, the siding (once she realized how easy it would be to attach things to it), and that there was no pedestrian or car traffic beneath it.
First, the balcony needed a good scrub.
“First, I hired a Tasker via Taskrabbit to clean the balcony,” Sandy says. “I informed my downstairs neighbor this was happening so they could remove anything on their balcony they didn’t want to get wet.
Next, she cozied up the balcony by adding artificial turf over top of the wood flooring and hanging outdoor-friendly curtains. “The most important thing is that my balcony is tucked away from passersby,” Sandy says. “This means no cars or people walk below my balcony, so there’s very low risk of anyone getting hurt” if anything falls.
The ceiling got a lush green makeover.
Sandy also added greenery overhead. She used a roll of wall greenery and artificial hanging plants to create the abundant, textured look. “It feels like a garden oasis,” Sandy says. Originally she planned on stapling all of this to the ceiling, but she realized it was too heavy, so she dangled it all from metal grids. “I used planter hooks to hang the grids and then zip tied the grass wall panels to the grid,” she explains.
The toughest part was covering the entire ceiling with the metal grids. She didn’t have a saw to cut them to size, so she had to overlap them strategically. “I didn’t realize this until I had already hung a majority of the grids,” Sandy explains. “I ended up having to take them down, figure out where the overlaps needed to be, hung them back up, and zip tied the overlapping areas to make sure they were secure and didn’t sway in the wind.” (She enlisted the help of her cousin — also named Sandy! — to help with this.)
There’s a woven accent wall that was totally DIYed.
The DIY duo also hung a “rug wall,” as Sandy calls it — an accent wall made from neutral tan outdoor rugs. They used vinyl siding hooks that can hold up to 30 pounds each, cut slits in the rugs, and hung the rugs in a layered fashion.
“It was surprisingly easy,” Sandy says; the trickiest part was making sure they didn’t overload the hooks. “One of the rugs fell down off the rug wall,” she recalls. “It was a 6-foot runner, and the weight was too heavy for the siding hooks, so I cut it in half and hung the two pieces separately.”
Two armchairs complete the balcony setup.
The best part of the balcony makeover, according to Sandy? “It’s functional,” she says. Now it’s a space guests wants to hang out in when they’re over. “We didn’t have any seating out there before, and it’s nice that two people can be out there now,” Sandy says.
Her best DIY advice is to make sure your projects are practical. “When it rains, my balcony gets a light mist at best; my upstairs neighbors don’t have animals that pee on the balcony, [and] my apartment maintenance team said they loved my balcony and would help me take it down if I needed it, and I don’t get extreme winds in the area I live in,” she says.
Her project cost $2,057. Her armchairs are from Amazon, and she also has string lights and table lamps to illuminate the balcony. “I wanted to think differently about apartment balconies and kind of make mine feel like an additional room instead of just a bland, small outdoor space,” Sandy says — and she certainly achieved her goal.
Inspired? Submit your own project here.