Fall Patio Fix Up With String Lights

Now that the weather is finally cooling down, I’m looking forward to spending more time in our back yard! Except that our back yard is basically a weedy jungle, because apparently that’s what happens when you have a baby and then don’t do any upkeep or gardening for 11 months! But all of that is changing now; I finally feel like I have my feet back underneath me in terms of being a new mom. So I’m going to tackle our crazy back yard jungle, starting with the patio because it’s where we spend most of our time.

Add string lights to your patio for a quick, gorgeous, and functional patio makeover!

Besides being covered in three-foot tall weeds, our patio was just too dark, so it was unusable after about 6pm. It would be fine to just not use the patio when it was dark out, except that our garage is detached, so the patio is the walkway into the house. And let me tell you, it’s kind of crazy when you’re carrying a baby, a giant diaper bag, a bunch of groceries, and trying to maneuver your way over uneven bricks in the pitch black! I have no idea why no one put a light above the door from the garage when it was built, but there isn’t any source of light in our backyard except for a small light just outside the back door of the house.

So when Jasco offered to send me their Enbrighten Cafe Lights and myTouch Smart digital timer, I knew they would be perfect for helping to fix up the patio, making it prettier and more functional!

Add string lights to your patio to brighten up the space, making it pretty and functional!

But before I could do anything out there, I had to start by weeding the patio. The grass had basically migrated over onto the patio and I could barely tell where the bricks ended and the grass began!

Patio before, full of weeds

It took a few days of hard work and picking weeds out of the cracks between the bricks, but the patio now looks like this! (Don’t mind the junk off to the right of the garage; that’s a clean up for another time!)

Fall Patio Fixed Up With String Lights

The only things out on the bricks are the patio table and chairs; all the weeds are gone, all the random junk that we were storing on our patio is gone, and now the space is totally gorgeous and useable, especially with the addition of the string lights!

We strung the lights from the small deck at the back of the house, across the patio over to the trellis attached to the garage. It’s perfect because it lights up both the patio table and the walkway from the garage to the house! And the Enbrighten Cafe lights come in 12′, 18′, 24′, and 48′ strands, so you can get exactly the length you need for wherever you want your lights.

Add string lights to your patio for additional outdoor lighting!

These string lights are really easy to hang because they have a small loop at the top of each light bulb; you can use a nail, a screw, or a zip tie depending on what you’re attaching the lights to and what you happen to have on hand.

We used zip ties to attach the lights to the trellises, and drove a screw hook into the wall of the garage above the window to hold the center string.

Hang string lights over your patio for a quick patio makeover

On the deck side, we attached the lights to the railing using zip ties, and I added some gorgeous fall flowers to the planter boxes hanging off the railing to add some color to the space.

Add flowers to planter boxes to add pops of color to a space

We plugged the string lights in through the TouchSmart Timer to automatically turn the lights on and off at appropriate times. The timer is really brilliant; it already has settings for morning and evening or you can set your own custom on and off times. You can also turn the lights on using a countdown timer for when you want the lights on a separate time from your normally scheduled times.

Use a smart timer to automatically turn your patio string lights on and off

But my favorite thing about these lights BY FAR is how bright they are! We have three rows of lights going across our patio, and it’s like football stadium lights out there once it gets dark!

Brighten your outdoor space with string lights

Now I never have to worry about coming home in the evenings and making my way into the house in the dark. And I don’t even have to remember to turn the lights on and off because the timer does it for me!

Give your patio a quick makeover with a set of string lights!

Plus they’re built for outdoor use, which is great because here in Chicago we have really bad winters! But these guys will hold up in rain or snow, so I can always have light out on the patio.

Add string lights to your patio for a quick makeover!

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Jessi Wohlwend

I believe that anyone can do crafts and DIY projects, regardless of skill or experience. I love sharing simple craft ideas, step by step DIY project tutorials, cleaning hacks, and other tips and tricks all with one goal in mind: giving you the tools you need to “do it yourself”, complete fun projects, and make awesome things!

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Reader Interactions

  1. Leanna says

    7 years ago

    This makes such a huge difference. It went from cluttered dark and scary to bright and welcoming. Great job, thanks for sharing.

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