By Amber Katz
When Nicole Ball and her husband finished a full-home renovation, the porch was the last thing on the list, and it showed.
They loved the space but weren’t enjoying it. The fix happened almost by accident.
“We sat outside on our crappy old furniture, sat beside each other, pulled up Wayfair.com and just ordered a rug,” Ball said.
From there it snowballed: throw pillows from HomeGoods, planters from Wayfair, and a Costco run for early-spring potted plants. The whole thing came together in about two weeks.
The rug, she explained, made the single biggest difference. Total cost for the soft-goods refresh (not counting new furniture) ran roughly $500, by Ball’s own rough estimate: about $300 in plants and planters, and about $100 for the rug.
The payoff has been daily.
“We sit out there every day,” Ball said. Her teenagers ended the school year by doing homework out there, her husband has claimed it as his spot, and it’s become a magnet for neighbors.
“It’s just a more welcoming space for guests.”
You don’t need a full or expensive renovation to fall in love with your outdoor space. According to local homeowners and a garden pro, sometimes the littlest change can make the biggest difference.
Ball said that not overthinking her porch made it less overwhelming. She and her husband picked out everything in about two hours, sitting outside and shopping on their phones.
“If you can invest like 90 minutes just on inexpensive sites, or pop over to HomeGoods,” she said, that’s enough. And for plants specifically, she’s a Costco convert: “They’ve already curated a mix of stuff.”
If something doesn’t make it through winter, no big deal, it’s not a major investment.
For homeowners who want specific, expert-backed ideas, Rye garden designer Lucy Berkoff suggests a few under-$150 upgrades. She seconds the Balls’ idea of a well-chosen outdoor rug. Berkoff says affordable, natural-looking options can hold up for years, even under a covered porch.
From there, she likes to build out a space with a statement piece, a single gorgeous planter with a saucer can do a lot of visual work on its own, whether it’s filled with flowers or planted as a small herb garden. For something with a little more personality, she suggests a squirrel-proof bird feeder (or even two, if you’re shopping within that budget), paired with a good birdseed mix.
“Get it at Stop and Shop, it’s always on sale,” she said.
Berkoff is also adamant about one unglamorous upgrade: ditch the traditional rubber hose. She’s a fan of coil-style options like the Pivot or the Zero G, paired with a quality watering wand, calling old-school rubber hoses “unwieldy and just a pain in the neck.”
Add some new outdoor throw pillows (she likes checking the clearance sections at retailers like Pottery Barn or Serena & Lily), a ceramic garden stool that pulls double duty as seating and decor, and string lights for instant ambiance after dark.
Not every upgrade is decorative.
In Greenhaven, Kristin Ascher spent the summer building something more ambitious on a budget: a “learning garden” for her four- and five-year-olds. Six weeks in, she’s built two raised beds for vegetables and sunflowers, with DIY stone trim and a pebble base for drainage, and the family is already harvesting.
She used an AI tool to help generate a planting schedule suited to her growing zone and sunlight conditions. The kids are hooked, and the family is already enjoying summer salads from beds they built themselves. “Fun and surprisingly low lift,” Ascher said.
