How to create a great balcony escape this summer

Reach for the skies and flip a few square metres from a clothes-drying zone into a private paradise

Whether your dream al-fresco life involves sipping a cooling drink, relaxing with a coffee or catching up with reading or work outdoors, tailor your balcony to your dream. File pictures

Balconies are a blessed bit of outdoor escape. With just a few key pieces, you can flip your few square metres from a clothes drying area to a luxe lounge spot or a private elevated haven for a supper for two. Your balcony should obviously be strong enough to support you and these few furnishings. If you have any doubts, contact an independent structural engineer to take a look. Children and pets should always be monitored on any balcony no matter how high the railing or glazed panels. So, let’s take to the skies.

Fold, flip, stack and tuck

Metamorphic and stacking furnishings are a flexible friend to unpack entertaining or a delightful slouch spot on your balcony. Hugging or completely flattened against the wall, deliver reshuffles in just a few moves without jousting with a fixed bistro set. 

Chairs and a tiny table can retract flat to sit up on robust wall hooks or go further with articulated but substantial buys like the Djupon folding table from Ikea. Propped out in a shallow triangle, it can take a couple of folding chairs in its embrace before flipping down to a useful coffee spot for two, or a generous hot-desk.

Djupon folding table, €75, Ikea. 

 

The top platform shelf is perfect for a USB-charged lamp and a couple of plants, and in robust, oily acacia wood with high-density wood fibres it should last years, €75, ikea.com/ie. For a sustainable choice? Favour recyclable PE rattan and FSC-certified timbers. My top tip with all balcony or garden-appropriate furniture is to veer towards double-duty buys - footstools with internal storage and/or flat tops that can act as small tables for sitting and placing trays.

Fixed features

Fixed designs should be carefully judged. Pay particular attention to the footprint of any table (in use and shoved aside), its surface profile and the leg composition. Kick-out designs table supports that radiate from the centre (fuoz) offer more room to pull in chairs in a bistro buy but less stability. 

Rocking and rolling tables are a cocktail-sloshing nuisance that can kill the mood. In chairs, cantilevers can often stack, but overall, just think of what’s less likely to trip you. 

Going for a round table and soft silhouetted seating, you won’t pierce your thighs on a corner in shorts. For proper dining, leave 70cm minimum of elbow room per person and 80cm to pull back a chair from the table’s edge. 

There are plenty of small sets where we can tuck chairs right under the table to flip the balcony back to drying duties.

In a tiny balcony, fluffed out with a few tomato towers, you might be better off plating up finger foods indoors. Pulling sliding doors wide open, the balcony can act largely as a glowing scene-stealer, lush with decorative planting and feature lighting, with your proper dining table inside the threshold. Consider going to the walls and furnishing into corners with modular lounge seating rather than crowding the centre of the balcony. 

A simple bench containing storage or a ledge in wood can be built into or against a wall with a suspended back cushion (flipping down if necessary). Don’t put in a nail or sling up a cocoon chair as a renter, without clear permission. The opportunity to paint? Sky blue or white walls combined with large areas of exterior grade mirror plate are incredibly effective, reflecting views and sky, and making walling all but disappear. Try a test spot.

Lightweight layering

Plastic, composites, poly-resin over wire, and aluminium are lightweight choices for detailing a balcony situation. In seating, soft, upholstered pads can warm up cheap flip-out models from €15 a perch, adding textural interest. Don’t forget to actually sit in potential chairs. Many sophisticated metal models are rude cheek-pinchers that torture the back within ten minutes. 

Hosti chairs by B&Q have that chic, organic Acapulco woven styling with petite dimensions. Featherweight and stackable, in rich colours, they yield nicely to the sitter, €40, diy.ie. Tip? Choose armless diners — much easier to slide into. If you only intend to use a small balcony yourself, there’s a whole world of low coffee tables, ottomans and sumptuous 1–2-person outdoor sofas to explore. Store the dimensions of your available balcony area on your phone before you shop in-store.

Here planting is largely hanging in containers to allow this narrow balcony to accommodate a sweet spot for two. File picture

Layering is important for outdoor decorating, whether you prefer pared-down Scandi-chic or the decadence of Arabian Nights. Cork-based suppliers Rugs.ie, have a stunning selection of outdoor hand-woven rugs and runners (great for a short, narrow balcony) in hose-friendly, 100% PET, a wool-like yarn created from plastic bottles. 

Outdoor rugs can be slippery when very wet and should not be put over unventilated timber where they will simply hold the rain, rotting your decking boards. Artificial grass? Largely impossible to recycle, it’s a petrochemical product that can get very hot in high summer. 

For anything staying outdoors, look for UV resistance to colour-fading and weather-resistance as standard. Mono-extruded poly-resins are coloured through and will last better. All these items should shed and evaporate off water with ease. Good outdoor cushions are designed right down to “drains” in the fillers.

Planter perfect

The walls and rails of any balcony are a fertile area to support softening greenery, but living at a height, always keep safety in mind. A fully loaded plant pot falling even one story could be murderous. Planting displays that reach up through the full height of the balcony, a full lush canopy of greenery, with hydroponic wall pockets in living-walls, nurture a magical environment jeweled in LED strand lighting, solar and rechargeable USB lamps and pendants.

Climbers like clematis will gentle the urban edge of a balcony rail. Deep hook designs, and over-rail pots should always be treated with caution, as they could go airborne if they dry out (including being lifted by the wind). Look for pieces with secure mounting brackets.

When setting out planters and furnishings, ensure your balcony can take the strain. Set over a roof, rather than suspended from it, a whole world of gardening in the sky opens up. File picture

Obviously, we’re choosing plants for the situation, including the aspect. Do you have room to bring more fragile species indoors in September? If you’re a very keen balconeer and container farmer, clay, stone and ceramic pots are heavy to handle. Look for composite materials, delivering the look for less kgs, including brands like Cera-Mix, made with 50% recycled plastic and 50% natural stone powder. 55x17x16cm stone-look troughs, €30 each, gardens4u.ie. 

I’m green-eyed and levitating at the Victorian can styling of the Hummer indoor/outdoor planter from Jysk in poly-resin and steel. It’s 60cm tall, with a wide basket up top for three large plant pots, and a storage shelf for a garden trug, 2 for €109, W25 x L50 x H60, jysk.ie. 

Open designs and weaves allow light to fly, creating a better sense of spaciousness than boxy, blocky, light-ingesters. Tall aluminium tiers and stages often used in greenhouses can provide a stable, raked spot for practical herb growing on a tiny footing.

Private time

Combining lighting and screening against intrusive eyes and chill winds, even set near to ground level, the sense of enclosure in a glowing, intimate space of a balcony, can be soul-stirring. Combine some soft planting that stirs on the breeze against timber or plastic fretwork, rolled natural screening, fabric sails and even faux climbers.

Laser-cut fixed privacy screens are exceptionally popular offering the protective feel of walling while allowing distilled light and shadow-play. 

Whether you love sipping a cooling drink or catching up on a good read or some work outdoors, tailor your balcony to your dream al-fresco life. File picture

Obviously, in an apartment situation, you need to talk to your building manager about any height issues when introducing any materials reading as fencing. Ikea’s Nammaro free-standing storage boxes offer an integrated 140cm high screen, €140, ikea.com/ie. A wood planter with a trellis top can be planted up to look like a mini-border. For Corten steel laser cut screening try hermeq.ie. Decorative Panels do a good range of garden panels in Medite, an exterior grade 18mm MDF from €169, decorativepanels.ie.

Wireless LED housing, both solar and USB-charged, has transformed what’s possible in these airy surroundings. Never leave inside lamps outside in the rain. Aside from fixed, outdoor rated (IP65) mains lighting, wires other than dainty fairy lights threaded through jasmine could prove a tripping hazard.

Table lamps are trending in unexpected places this year, and you’ll find them trotted out everywhere from the bathroom to kitchen counters. Note the charge and running times above all. Try lead free, suspended Lindy models from €45 including the bulbous Eleia pendant. Suppliers include lights.ie.