What Happens When You Actually Use Your Apartment Balcony Every Single Day
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What Happens When You Actually Use Your Apartment Balcony Every Single Day
For eight months after moving into my apartment, I walked past the balcony door approximately four hundred times without opening it.
Not because anything was wrong with it. The balcony was fine. Small, yes. Concrete floor, yes. A railing that had seen better days. But perfectly usable.
I just... didn't use it.
I told myself I would eventually. Once I got some furniture out there. Once I cleaned it up. Once the weather was better. Once I had more time.
You know how that story goes.
Then one Saturday morning in April, I opened the balcony door to let some air in while I made coffee, stepped outside just to look around, and ended up standing there for forty minutes watching the neighborhood wake up. Birds. A dog walker. The bakery across the street starting its ovens. The sky turning from grey to pink to pale blue.
It was genuinely one of the best mornings I'd had in months.
And I thought — why don't I do this every single day?
So I decided to find out. I committed to using my apartment balcony every single day for sixty days. Not for a long time necessarily — sometimes just ten minutes. But intentionally, deliberately, every day.
Here's exactly what happened.
What You'll Find In This Article
The honest, sometimes surprising, occasionally weird results of sixty days of daily balcony use — including what changed in my apartment, what changed in my daily routine, what changed in my head, and the practical things I did to make the balcony actually usable. Plus budget reality, because nobody has unlimited money for outdoor furniture.
1. The First Week Was Awkward — And That's Normal
I want to be honest about this because nobody ever is.
The first week of my balcony experiment was genuinely a bit uncomfortable.
I didn't have any outdoor furniture yet. So I was sitting on the concrete floor with my coffee, which sounds romantic but mostly just made my back hurt. My neighbors on the adjacent balcony could see me clearly and we both didn't know whether to wave or pretend the other person didn't exist.
The balcony itself had accumulated a layer of city dust that I had apparently been choosing not to notice for eight months. There were two dead plants in pots that were more depressing than nothing at all would have been. And a weird bag of things I had apparently put there intending to deal with them "later."
The first thing I did was clean it. Sweep, wipe down the railing, throw away the dead plants, deal with the mysterious bag.
Twenty minutes of work.
And suddenly — it was actually quite nice out there.
SMALL APARTMENT CONFESSION: The "later" bag contained: three extension cords, a broken umbrella, a yoga mat I had forgotten I owned, and a Christmas decoration from 2023. None of it needed to be there.
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2. Getting Outside Every Morning Changed Something In My Brain
By week two, I had established a morning balcony habit. Coffee outside, every morning, even if just for ten minutes before work.
This sounds simple. It is simple. But the effect on my mental state was surprisingly significant.
One thing I noticed pretty quickly is that starting the day outside — even for a short time — changes how you experience the rest of the day indoors. There's something about natural light, fresh air, and actual weather (not apartment climate control) that wakes your brain up in a way that coffee alone doesn't.
I'm not a scientist. I can't explain the exact mechanism. But from experience, the mornings I started on the balcony felt clearer and more intentional than the mornings I started scrolling my phone in bed.
Weirdly enough, I also started noticing things I had completely tuned out before. Patterns in my neighborhood. Which birds were around in which seasons. The woman three floors up who always waters her plants at exactly 7:15am. The way the light hits the building across the street differently every morning.
Small things. But paying attention to small things is surprisingly good for your general state of mind.
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3. I Spent Less Time Doomscrolling — Without Trying To
This one I genuinely did not expect.
By week three, I noticed I was spending less time on my phone in the mornings. Not because I decided to — I didn't set any screen time limits, I didn't delete apps, I didn't do any intentional digital detox.
It just happened naturally because the balcony gave me something more interesting to do.
When you're outside with a coffee watching actual things happen in the actual world, pulling out your phone to look at other people's versions of the world feels less appealing. The algorithm has nothing on a good sunrise and a neighborhood coming to life.
I started leaving my phone inside during balcony time. Not always — sometimes I'd bring it out to read or listen to something. But often I'd just... be outside. Watching. Thinking. Existing without consuming anything.
Truthfully, this was probably the biggest unexpected benefit of the whole experiment. Sixty days later I'm still doing it.
4. The Balcony Became My "Third Place" — Without Leaving Home
There's a concept called the "third place" — somewhere that's not home and not work, where you go to decompress and just exist. A coffee shop, a park, a library.
Personally, I always struggled with having a third place that was convenient enough to actually use regularly. Coffee shops cost money. Parks require putting on real shoes and leaving the building.
By week four of the experiment, I realized my balcony had quietly become my third place.
It wasn't home in the way the inside of my apartment was home — it felt more open, more external, more like being somewhere rather than being contained somewhere. But it also wasn't the effort of actually going out.
Specifically, I started using the balcony for things I previously had to leave home for. Working through a problem? Balcony. Needed to decompress after a stressful work call? Balcony. Wanted to read without the distraction of being in my apartment? Balcony.
For some reason, the small psychological shift of being outside — even on a 60 square foot concrete ledge three floors up — changes your mental state in ways that just moving from one room to another inside doesn't.
Many of the storage lessons I learned on my balcony also apply indoors. Take a look at our 8 Small Kitchen Storage Ideas for Apartments if you're fighting clutter in a compact home.
5. I Finally Got Outdoor Furniture — Here's What I Actually Bought
Around week three I accepted that sitting on concrete floor every morning wasn't sustainable and spent a weekend sorting out the balcony properly.
Here's exactly what I got and what it cost, because I know this is what you actually want to know:
One folding chair with a cushion — $45 from a local home store. Comfortable, folds flat against the wall when not in use. This was the single most important purchase. One genuinely comfortable chair changed everything.
A small folding side table — $22. Somewhere to put my coffee cup and my book. Essential.
An outdoor rug (3x5 feet) — $38. This was the purchase that surprised me the most. Putting a rug on the concrete floor made the balcony feel immediately like a real space rather than a ledge. The visual difference was significant.
Two small planters with herbs — $28 total including the plants. Basil and mint. Not only do they look good and smell amazing, I actually use them when cooking now.
Solar string lights — $19. One set along the railing. At night, this turned the balcony from "place where I stand" to "place I actually want to be."
Total: $152.
That's it. For $152, a dusty concrete ledge became a space I use every single day and genuinely love.
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BUDGET REALITY: You don't need to spend hundreds on outdoor furniture. The most important thing is one comfortable seat and somewhere to put your drink. Everything else is bonus. Start with those two things and see how often you use the space before investing further.
6. Plants Changed the Energy Completely
I mentioned the herbs. But around week five I got a few more plants and the effect on the balcony was dramatic enough that it deserves its own section.
Three additional plants — a small lavender, a trailing pothos in a hanging planter on the railing, and a snake plant in a corner. Total cost about $35.
The difference between a balcony with plants and one without is hard to quantify but immediately obvious when you experience it. Plants make a space feel alive. They add color, texture, movement when the wind catches them, and in the case of the lavender, a smell that is genuinely one of the best things in the world on a warm morning.
I also noticed that caring for the plants — watering them, checking on them, noticing new growth — became part of my daily balcony ritual in a way that was quietly satisfying. There's something grounding about having living things you're responsible for, even small ones.
One thing I'd say to anyone who's killed plants before (me, many times): outdoor plants on a balcony that gets reasonable light are significantly easier to keep alive than indoor plants. They get proper sunlight and natural rainfall. The snake plant and pothos basically take care of themselves.
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COMMON MISTAKE: Starting with too many plants before knowing your balcony's light conditions. My balcony gets morning sun and afternoon shade — I learned this before buying and chose plants accordingly. Check your sun exposure first.
7. Evening Balcony Time Became My Favorite Part of the Day
About a month in, something shifted.
The morning balcony routine was established and working well. But I started going out in the evenings too — not as a deliberate habit, just because I found myself drawn out there.
There's something about a balcony at dusk that's just different from any other time of day. The light. The air temperature dropping. The neighborhood sounds changing from daytime to evening. The string lights coming on automatically as it got dark.
I started eating dinner on the balcony when the weather allowed. Reading out there in the evenings. Just sitting and doing nothing in particular as the city settled down around me.
If I'm being realistic, the evenings on the balcony became the thing I looked forward to most on difficult days. Not anything elaborate — just my chair, a drink, the lights, the plants, the city sounds.
That's genuinely one of the cheapest and most effective wellbeing upgrades I've ever made.
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8. My Neighbors Became Actual People
This one I didn't see coming at all.
When you're in your apartment all the time, your neighbors are essentially fictional characters. You hear them occasionally. You pass them in the hallway and do the awkward nod. But you don't really know them.
Using my balcony every day meant I started seeing my neighbors regularly. The couple on the balcony to my left. The older gentleman below who tends his massive pot garden with extraordinary dedication. The family across the way whose kid waves at everyone.
We started talking. Briefly, casually — the way balcony neighbors do. Comments about the weather, about each other's plants, about whatever's happening on the street below. Nothing deep.
But it quietly transformed the feeling of living in my building. I went from feeling like one anonymous person among many to feeling like part of something. A small, loose community of people who happen to share the same view.
Surprisingly, this made me feel more settled in my apartment overall. More like I actually lived there rather than just stored myself there between other activities.
What I Know After 60 Days
Here's the honest summary.
I went into this experiment expecting to use my balcony more and maybe grow some plants. What I didn't expect was that sixty days of daily outdoor time would genuinely improve my sleep, reduce my phone dependency, create a sense of community with my neighbors, give me a "third place" without leaving home, and become the most looked-forward-to part of my day.
All from a 60 square foot concrete ledge and $152 worth of furniture and plants.
The balcony was always there. It just needed someone to decide it was worth using.
If you have outdoor space — a balcony, a small patio, access to a rooftop — and you're not using it regularly, I'd encourage you to try one week of intentional daily use. Even just ten minutes with a coffee in the morning.
See what happens.
I'd bet it becomes twenty minutes pretty quickly. And then you'll start going out in the evenings too. And then one day you'll realize that a piece of concrete you walked past for months has somehow become your favorite room.
Apartment Confession Time 😄
What's the thing on your balcony right now that has no business being there? ðŸ˜
Mine was the mysterious bag with three extension cords and a 2023 Christmas decoration. I know I'm not alone in this.
Drop it in the comments — and then go clean your balcony. Seriously. It takes twenty minutes and it might just change your mornings. 🌿☀️
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