16 Great Patio Ideas

Convert underutilized areas in your landscape into welcoming patios by employing handsome furnishings, vibrant fabrics, and beautifully planted containers. Though this area was designed as a designated patio space, patios can be located anywhere you can create a floor from brick, flagstones, wood chips, or gravel.

Everyone needs a solitary spot for sharing quiet conversation with a friend or kicking back with a good book. A few cushy chairs and a table for resting drinks and books is all that is required to create a purposeful patio. But, when you arrange those things in a lushly planted garden and add in a water feature, you'll create a charmingly cozy nook that you'll never want to leave.

Patios should be retreats that offer peaceful respite from hectic work weeks and family-tending days. Opt for neutral color palettes, spare furniture arrangements, and plentiful plantings to fashion serene scenes that match your relaxing and entertaining needs. Keep it low-maintenance by selecting weatherproof furniture and fabrics and cultivating a garden from easy-care container plantings.

Elegant homes call for refined outdoor furnishings. This covered patio formalizes its outlook with a distinctive dining set combining glitzy chairs with a table crafted from a carved base and a glass top. Want to add some sparkle to your patio in a jiffy? Hang a gilded mirror on an exterior wall or fence that's located near your patio. Paint wooden chairs with a decorative metallic finish. Or, turn beautiful outdoor fabrics into cushions and pillows to adorn chairs, chaises, and settees.

Kick start conversations and promote appreciative smiles by outfitting your patio with scintillating signage and creatively constructed furniture. This front yard patio posts the home's house numbers in an easy-to-read manner. Concrete blocks stack up as end tables and sofa. Note how purposefully positioned blocks provide storage caches for collections, reading materials, and extra picnic gear.

Give your outdoor room interiorlike appeal with these simple tips. These patio design ideas will help you put a unique spin on your outdoor space with tricks for furniture, amazing amenities and more.

Amplify a patio's appeal and function by adding in fetchingly formed accent tables and vivaciously patterned fabrics. Decorate with flowerpots and accessories that suit your design preferences. Choose accessories that stand up to the elements along with items that will look better with weathering. 

Grab a paint brush and white paint to perk up time-tired furniture and planter-box finishes. Need new cushions for your patio furniture? Opt for cushions covered in a fabric that advances into view. This homeowner did it right: bright blue cushions trimmed with bright white welting set on white frames make a significant splash.

Outdoor textiles come in an amazing array of colors, patterns, and styles. Use the durable fabrics--designed to endure through sunny and stormy days--to colorfully cover cushions, fashion throw pillows, and create patio-enclosing drapery panels. In this backyard, formally patterned pillows dress the patio chairs and settee, while color-coordinated throw pillows draw attention to an outlying bench.

There's no better places than outdoor living spaces for cultivating garden spirit. Ply furnishings with botanical motif fabrics, move in potted geraniums and impatiens, and display accessories with flower shapes. These homeowners went one step further. They repurposed an old work bench to use as a potting station, which ensures they always have fresh blooms within arm's reach.

Great-outdoors-loving homeowners cushion cozy nests that they can enjoy from dawn to well past sunset. This family created a finely furnished living room on their covered bluestone patio. Pretty wicker pieces dressed in even prettier fabrics provide comfortable seats for watching the television set mounted on an exterior wall. Want to stretch your patio usage? Consider adding electric lights, stereo speakers, an outdoor kitchen, and/or a fire pit.

Poolside patios and their resident patio sitters often suffer from too much sun. Whether your shade-lacking patio sits next to a swimming pool or your back door, consider cutting the sun's glare and improving comfort levels by adding freestanding and table-inset umbrellas that can be adjusted as the sun moves across the sky. Select umbrella fabrics that complement your patio's color scheme. Pick patterned umbrellas fabrics to jazz up the backyard scene.

Thinking about redesigning your patio? Take your color cue from your home's exterior to create a calmingly cohesive composition. In this alfresco dining area, the white-ruffled slipcovers and umbrella mirror the color of the home's trim. They pull up to a rustic stone table that echoes the siding's earthen tone. Breezy white cotton slipcovers are a fine choice for outdoor spaces. They can be simply tossed in the washer with bleach and hung in the sun to dry.

Consider furnishing your patio with lightweight pieces that you can move from sun to shade or partner with other conversation groupings as needed. Look for pieces with vintage patinas, scintillating silhouettes, and chromatic fabrics so even the smallest objects will mightily contribute to a patio's overall good looks.

Antique garden furniture and accessories bring sophisticated substance to century-old and brand-new patios alike. Look for garden relics at estate sales, flea markets, and antique shows specializing in vintage garden gear. Designed after French antiques, these reproduction pieces perfectly suit the homeowner's love of European style, while supplying modern function on this stone-paved hilltop patio.