Since summer is going to start winding down very soon, I thought it was probably time to show you what  I did with my balcony this year.

Since I moved here in August last year, I only had a couple short months to use my balcony and then it was winter, so I was kind of starting from scratch this year.

I did find a nice little table at the end of last year, and repurposed a chair I previously used inside for more comfortable seating.

Just to refresh your memory- above is what my balcony looks like. I have two sliding doors- one in my living room (on the right) and one in my bedroom (the left). This is my first outdoor space and I am totally tickled with it.

I wanted to make the balcony more like an outdoor living room for this summer, and I wanted to think about decorating it like a room in my apartment (for some reason this is a strange concept to me. All my decorating knowledge goes out the window when I go outside)

In making the balcony a little more cohesive, I decided to first recover the little chair I had outside. 

Bad pic, sorry. It's the only one I can find!

This chair came from Ikea and originally had a red seat and flowered back cushions.

My sewing skills have definitely improved since this project, thanks to practice and a new machine!

One of my first sewing projects nearly 2 years ago was recovering it with some green geometric fabric. But this time I decided to go with purple ikat, an outdoor canvas from Joann's. 

The cushion is actually a box cushion, I made it with 3 pieces- top, bottom and the piece that goes around. I put invisible zippers in the pillows, but wasn't able to find a long enough zipper for the seat cushion, so I did it the old fashion way. It's hard to tell because the table is in the way, but this cover fits WAY better than the last. 

I also decided to re-purpose a bookcase I had inside as a plant stand outside. It was a dark brown color, but had seen better days. I decided I wanted to go with a contrasting color for the bookcase, so I picked out a rusty orange color at Ace Hardware. I only needed one paint sample to complete the bookcase.

Bookcase in previous life (stay tuned for an
update on that chair as well)

Bookcase now!

I put out the plants I had on hand that can handle the outdoors, all of which are in my white planters. Some of the planters are from Ikea, others are from a local gardening store. Overall, I think the white on orange is pretty spiffy, and the purple and orange go together swimmingly. I think I have made good progress with making my balcony feel more incorporated into my apartment and have got a ton of use of out it so far this summer.

I thought about making chair pads for the little bistro set that I have neglected to take a picture of (and its now too dark...), but in the end I decided that might be overkill, plus the chairs are fine as they are.

I would like to do something with that black table I have in front of the chair. Its placement more as a coffee table than a side table has been really convenient, but it doesn't really fit the feel of the rest of the space. Paint it, or make something else to go there?