Accessorising your alfresco lifestyle

You adore the alfresco lifestyle? Invest in any of our beautiful garden furniture sets and you’ve already made a great decision. The comfort, the design, the materials, they’re made with love and built to last. Set it up in your garden and it looks stunning straight out of the box.

The same goes for our chimineas, fire pits, BBQs, outdoor ovens, parasols and more. They look gorgeous from the moment you unpack them. We’re talking classy design and great materials here. But maybe you’d like to make the design of your alfresco entertainment space your own?

Here are some bright creative ideas around making your garden look extra-special for your family and guests.

11 bright ideas for adding personality to your alfresco lifestyle

1. Add funky cushions! Contemporary garden furniture tends to come in a suite of beautiful subtle colours, browns and creams and greys. Add vivid colour with bright cushions that you can take outdoors then store indoors or in your Keter garden storage box when you’re not using them. It’s very easy to make your own cushion covers with stunning fabrics and just as easy to buy what you want online.
2. Throws are the way to go. You can’t beat a soft, colourful throw to bring a subtle modern garden swing or garden seating to sparkling life. Use real wool blankets as throws so people can snuggle under them if it gets a bit chilly. Fleece throws are just as warm and cost less.
3. Get busy with garden lighting. Lighting up the garden permanently after dark isn’t a good idea since it can seriously disturb the wildlife’s circadian rhythms. The same goes for your plants. They need proper darkness at night. This means garden lighting should be turn-offable once you’ve gone indoors. Good quality solar lights, both those that illuminate pathways and those that dangle to give you gorgeous decorative efefcts, can be switched on and off. If you want to fit regular electric lighting in the garden, you’ll probably need a qualified electrician to do it all safely, with the right cabling and water-proofing in mind.
4. Glass jars containing candles and tea lights are a pretty alternative to electric lights, solar or otherwise, and give you a lovely flickering ambience that’s just as magical as the flames in your fire pit, chimenea or BBQ,
5. Old garden furniture? Paint is one of the cheapest, simplest and most creative ways to add extras years onto the life of old garden furniture, whether it’s metal or plastic or wood. There’s a specialist paint finish for all of them and it’s a simple enough job. Paint each chair a different ‘heritage’ shade if you like, or choose vivid reds, oranges and pinks to complement the flowers. Let your imagination run wild. Every garden welcomes extra colour.
6. Bring out the rugs. Create a stunning exotic look with indoor rugs brought outdoors, something that makes sense in great weather. It’s lovely lounging around on the lawn on a rug, giving your garden that magical far eastern feel. Old rugs are best, not your posh ones. If you don’t have any suitable rugs try ebay for beautiful second hand and new rug bargains. Or try your local carpet outlet. They might have some gorgeous offcuts you could use, and some shops will even hem the edges for you with matching or contrasting stitching.
7. Floor cushions ‘r’ us. Make your own enormous floor cushions or buy colourful floor cushions in tough fabric to complement your garden furniture, offering lots of relaxed seating.
8. Float on with gorgeous gauzy curtains. Got a gazebo? Add unique privacy and colour with yards of lovely, floaty see-through fabric, something like a good quality polyester chiffon, easy to wash. You can buy it plain or patterned, and some of the flowery patterns are stunning. Drape it over the gazebo for an exotic look that also created extra privacy.
9. Flowers, flowers, flowers… your garden might be mostly green. In which case grab a load of containers, fill them with water and stack then with real blooms. Or buy lovely silk flowers and make a display that lasts all year round. Some of them look remarkably real.
10. Pimp your garden shed! Is your shed a bit of an eyesore? A coat of colourful paint will make it into a fab feature, even better when you add a decorative border or panel. If you’re no good at art you could paint simple patterns like hearts or flowers. Paint an old wooden shed with a heritage colour, one of those lovely quiet greys or soft browns, and it’ll disappear into the background, smart and cool.
11. Bunting is brilliant. Make your own bunting from fade-resistant fabric. There’s no need to sew. A stapler does the job beautifully, and cutting the triangles using pinking shears to give a fray-free edge means there’s no hemming either. Alternatively, buy strings of bunting or even tinsel to add festival-inspired spice to your very own great outdoors.

How about you? Do you have any bright ideas of your own to add? One of our customers hangs glass and plastic Christmas tree baubles from the trees in their garden so it looks festive all year round. Another uses ‘found objects’ like chunks of tree trunk to create wild garden sculpture like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Basically, the world is your oyster…