Balcony! God knows in Mumbai it’s a near-rare phenomenon. You might get a sun-deck, yes, but a good balcony where you can sit with 4 people and have a meal and some beer- no. As a matter of fact, for the longest time I did not have a balcony. In the burbs there was no balcony at all; in Navi Mumbai I atleast had a sundeck and whoa, a beautiful open terrace in one of them. Unfortunately, when we moved from in there we were so used to having a space to chill outside the walls that we specifically chose a home with at least a big overlooking balcony. Too bad it took me 2 and a half years to actually make the place not only usable but dreamy and pretty on a budget.
So hop along, let’s see how far we’ve come here!
So you know, lately I have been smitten by Whitney Leigh Morris, fab, fab designer, blogger, and a believer of the maxim ‘you don’t have to live large to live beautifully’, and her cottage style in Venice. And amongst all that swoon worthy decor, what I love most about her her work and her cottage is the effortless flow of indoors into outdoors. Her backyard is almost a part of her living room and it’s outright brilliant.
My bedroom opens to this balcony, so it was the perfect guinea pig to try out a bit of Tiny Canal Cottage style. And I’ll have to beat my own drums and tell you that it’s just about perfect.
So that’s pretty much how it looks like from where I sleep. A step out and I am in a dreamy balcony. A step in and I am in dreamland. When my husband saw me all elbow on it he told me, “well, we hardly use it.” Well, that’s where I come in. Ill make it a place that you will love to use! Ofcourse I did not tell him that because well, hehe, Im a little modest like that too. Take a look at where we started from in our endeavour to have a good balcony.
Yes. For many a moon the balcony looked like this. Then it looked better from time to time but there wasn’t a balcony to look forward to. So I pulled down the covers, put on my worst clothes and set my sail to give it a pretty makeover. Step 1, deciding the layout.
Balcony Layout
If you have a small balcony like mine, choose a spot which will be your centre point and start decorating around. For me, I started with placing the table and the chairs. If it’s bigger, you might want to create multiple focal points or seating area.
Balcony furniture
Do not look for small scale furniture. They somehow tamper with the proportion of the place. Instead use full scale furniture. Also do not push your furniture to the sides because they will make the balcony look smaller. For smaller balconies area decorating works better.
Decor
As for decor, I chose something simple, dreamy and uncomplicated. No rugs for me because I stay on the 9th floor with a whole lot of dust and breeze flowing in so I kept it open. When it comes to outdoor spaces, im a big fan of plants. From big blooming bougainvillea to sweet railing boxes and overhead plants that can be hung from the ceiling- they all look pretty fantastic depending upon the style and size of your balcony. Actually I am a huge fan of anything overhead and added a bit of Macrame too! Little floaty things = better dreamy!
Lighting
Now for outdoors there are a lot of lighting options. You can add pendants, a small chandelier, bigger string lights or even fairy or rice lights. I love fairy lights so I strung them irregularly over my money plants overhead.
This is how it looks when it’s lit at night!
Started from the bottom now I’m on the 9th floor balcony
I think under 1000 rupees, this has turned out to be quite a stunner. What do you think? Leave a comment for details or if you’d like to know anything! For now, scooting. Because? Hey, Monday morning yo!
Rukmini XO
