At the beginning of the week, we shared the mood board for our balcony and we’ve wasted no time and have already been really busy starting our balcony makeover project!

Luckily there’s no building work to do as the waterproof covering of the balcony was replaced just before we purchased the apartment and the timber decking was installed, too.
As you can see, we’ve already added a few flower boxes on the top of the balustrade but haven’t yet had a chance to actually add many plants. One thing we have now done however is treated the decking.

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Treating the deck really couldn’t be easier. We bought a pot of decking oil (this is the decking oil we used) and applied a couple of coats with a paintbrush (I think you were meant to use a cloth but a paintbrush worked well, too).

I liked the look of the decking before but I love the slightly warmer and richer look of it now that it’s been treated. Best of all, our balcony is only small so treating it only took around half an hour!

But we didn’t stop there! We loved how everything really stood out against the slatted black fence in the garden in our last house so we knew that we wanted to create a dark background for the plants to pop against.
And that’s exactly what we did!

It’s a dark grey/black exterior paint with hints of green that I just picked up at our local DIY store. It’s not fancy or expensive paint (if you’re in Germany it’s Swingcolor from Bauhaus) and I have to admit I was really pleasantly surprised by the quality. We only applied a single coat and it already covered really well.

I have to admit that I had a bit of a wobble when I first started to apply the paint, though! It looked much, much greener than I’d anticipated from the swatch!
Yes, I know you should never buy paint purely from a swatch but it’s such a small area and the minimum amount of paint I had to buy was a litre anyway so we figured it was just worth the risk.

Luckily it dried much greyer and darker with a lovely matt finish. Phew! We still need to touch up a few areas but so far it’s already looking much more like we’d like it too!

Obviously, there’s still a long way to go. We still don’t have furniture and have almost no plants but at least we’ve started with getting to basics done.
Do you have any updates planned for your outdoor space? What would your ideal garden or balcony look like?
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Caitlin says
sweet little deck AND your site updates look great.
Christine says
Thanks, Caitlin! Have been busy buying plants – can’t wait to share an update!
Cx
Lucy says
Ah fab changes! It all pops that much more and will look amazing once all the plants are in. Really like the idea of painting our standard brown Cuprinol fence a dark grey or black but should probably finish everything else we’ve started first! x
Christine says
Thanks, Lucy! Life would be too easy if we all finished projects before starting new ones! ;)
Cx
Lins @ Boo & Maddie says
Ooh I love the dark wall and treated wood it’s looking fabulous already!! Great work x
Christine says
Thanks, Lins! Can’t wait to turn it into a little oasis!
Cx