Apartment Balcony | How I Decorated My Apartment Balcony

One of the spaces I was most excited to have when moving into my first apartment was the apartment balcony. I just finished decorating it and can't wait to show you all the tips and tricks I did to make it an extension of my apartment. We have been spending nearly every night out here and it has quickly become the favorite space to be!!

Here's the before and after of the patio:

I live in a brand new apartment complex (which you can tell from the no landscaping in the next pictures hah!) so I started off with a pretty nice canvas. The stone work already made it feel more decorated and luckily, my buildings colors were really neutral. The building next to us is red and I am thanking my lucky stars that I got into a unit that matched my aesthetic .

This balcony is located right next to my apartment living room, and me being extra like I am, wanted to make sure that it flowed nicely even though they were two seperate areas.

I will say, I went into this thinking that I could decorate this balcony really inexpensive and phew - balcony furniture and decor is EXPENSIVE!

I would say all in this cost around $800. Ouch. But it looks good right?! We (Ben and I) also made sure that everything we bought would be able to be used in a home once we're out of this apartment.

Links To Everything In My Apartment Balcony:

My Biggest Tips For Decorating an Apartment Balcony:

1. Add an outdoor rug.

A rug does an INSANE amount for making your space look more put together. The exact rug I have in my patio is this one from Target. One of the biggest things I make sure in every single room is that my rug isn't too small. Honestly, it's one of the biggest mistakes people make one designing a room is getting a rug that is too small and it instantly makes their room look "cheaper".

My patio was too big for a 5x7 rug and too small for a 10'x7' rug but I would rather have it bigger than smaller any day so we actually ended up folding down the left side. No one would ever know but having the rug take up the majority of the space makes it look realll good out here.

Even if your patio isn't big enough for an outdoor table, putting an outdoor rug under two chairs and a small table in between will make your space look more like a room and less like a balcony.

2. Figure out what type of seating your apartment balcony can hold.

Isn't this table just to die for?! I have been obsessing over this table for about a year now. It is this table from World Market. My apartment balcony is just on the verge of being too small to fit this table and you kind of need to wiggle your way into the chairs.

I was so stubborn about getting this table to fit because my apartment inside doesn't have enough room for a table and we love to host friends for drinks and games. Truthfully, I thought it was going to be way tighter than it actually is and I am SO happy we went for a table.

We DID seal the table twice which I highly recommend because some people said they didn't seal this table and it was destroyed from the water marks. We have drinks out here all the time and while I try to have my friends use coasters, cups have just sat on the table and the water bubbles so we can tell that the sealer worked.

For all of you with smaller apartment balconies, this is what I would have bought:

Click Here to Buy on Walmart

I know having a patio this large is definitely not the norm so if I was to have a smaller patio I would have gotten two chairs like this and a cute little side table like this. That way you and your girlfriend can have a cocktail out there, you can have coffee in the morning, read a book, etc without it being too full.

3. Outdoor Chairs

Holy crap are outdoor chairs expensive!!! I mean I knew they wouldn't be cheap, but I am shocked at how much they actually were!! I ended up being able to find the best deal on chairs I actually liked from Target. Here are the exact chairs I got. Now, let me be clear. They were not the cheapest chairs I could find, just the -cheapest chairs that didn't look like they would be falling apart tomorrow- chairs.

When we got them under the table, they sat really low so I got some chair cushions to put on top. I'm not sure if these chairs are made low, or if this table is just high.

4. Outdoor Lights

I'm going to be honest, I didn't want lights out on my patio because I thought it looked to "collegy" hahah. As we were decorating the space, something felt like it was missing. It just didn't feel complete. We last minute added the lights and let me tell you, I LOVE THEM. They gave such an amazing ambiance to the space.

I was very specific with the lights I wanted. It needed to have a black cord (buh-bye green cord) and a clear light. Hanging lights were sold out everywhere near me and five minutes before store closed I decided to quickly run into Michaels and we got lucky with these ones. Those are sold out now but these are from Amazon with great reviews, look the same, and are even cheaper.

Because I am renting, we used outdoor command hooks to hang them and they worked out perfectly!! You can see exactly how we hung them in my Youtube video - Insanely Cute Apartment Decorating Ideas You Need To Know.

5. Outdoor Decor

I kept searching Pinterest for apartment balcony ideas and a lot of them were beautiful but too boho for me. I ended up finding this really cute candle decor piece on top of my table from HomeGoods. It is soo pretty at night all lit up!!

Last minute, I decided to get two of these pillows to put on the end chairs. Target does it again ;). and again...because that's where I got the lanterns from.

I hope that gave you some inspiration for your own apartment balcony!! If you've been on the edge about decorating your balcony, 100% do it. We use it alllll the time.