How is your outdoor space looking these days?  When we first moved into our house, the back patio was a sea of Astroturf and prison bars:

And even after we took down the bars, scraped up the Astroturf, and demolished the little brick wall, the covered patio was cute but could use a little jazzing up, don’t you think?

(As you can see, this pic was taken before we laid new sod in the backyard.)

I love the wicker furniture and the outdoor rug does a great job of anchoring the seating area, but it’s just not too exciting.  Or, I guess I should say, it wasn’t too exciting!  Take a look at that baby now!

Mmmm, I love it!!  And the best part is that this total transformation was super easy – I’m talking 15 minutes.

All I did was add a pair of curtain panels from Ikea, as well as two Ikea throw pillows.  Not too shabby for under 70 bucks, right?

It was super easy to hang the curtain panels – no curtain rods or fancy supplies needed!  In fact, all you need are a few nails, a hammer and a ladder.  Here’s how I did it:

1.  Fold’em.  My curtain panels were super long and super wide – and they were lined on the back (pretty fancy for Ikea, right?).  Since they were longer than I needed, I simply folded down the top of the panel about 4 inches.  Then, because I wanted my panels to look pretty from both the patio and the backyard, I just folded them in half length-wise.  That way the pattern is visible from all sides!  I didn’t worry about the panels becoming too skinny – I simply wanted them to frame the patio to give a little visual interest, so they didn’t need to be super wide or even functional.  Just pretty and fun.

2.  Pleat and nail. Now comes the fun part!  Our patio is covered, and there’s a little soffit that hangs down right at the edge of the patio (you can kind of see it in that first picture with the curtains).  I decided to hang the curtains from that soffit, so once I was up there on my ladder I just started nailing!  I began on the inner edge of the curtain – closest to the brick – and nailed right through the fabric (and all the folds) with a pretty long nail.  Then, since I wanted my curtains to be rather narrow, I folded the fabric back over itself and put in another nail about 1.5 inches from the first nail – this created a little pleat in the curtain that resulted in a pretty fold.  I kept pleating and nailing until the whole curtain was secure, and that was it!!  Super easy!

As for choosing the fabric, I saw these curtains at Ikea and just went for them.  I knew they would work perfectly with the greens and browns in the patio furniture and the outdoor rug, and the pattern is summery and fun but could also work in the winter.  But we’ll see, maybe I’ll switch it up for winter!

And for those of you that are interested, Ikea also sells a track system that would be perfect for installing functional outdoor curtains – I bought it myself to add some mosquito netting, but it turned out that our patio is pretty mosquito-free!

I’ve been really pleased with how the patio turned out – it really feels like an extension of our home and is a fabulous place for morning coffee, entertaining friends, or just kicking back and listening to the birds.

What do you guys think?  Have you created an outdoor room at your house?

P.S.  I’d like to give a big shout out too all the lovely readers that swung by the open house at the flip yesterday – Lucinda, Kristina, Desiree, and Jen, thanks so much and it was awesome to meet you!!

This post is shared with DIY Day on A Soft Place to Land.