Brighten Your Life With String Lights

After a couple of months in isolation, I began looking for ways to improve our living space in small ways. If I was going to have to be home all the time, I wanted to want to be here. One of the best things I did, a little thing that has brought me more happiness than I would have predicted, was to string lights all around my backyard fence.

While searching online for backyard toys for my son, I stumbled upon string lights at Five Below that, at $7 per package, seemed like a worthy investment. (My set looks more like the set pictured above, but they do still have this version in stock.)

We live in a twin home in an old neighbourhood in Eastern Pennsylvania. The backyards are small and close together, so unless we were outside playing with our son, my husband and I didn’t spend much time out there. But now, when the sun starts to set and we turn the lights on, the yard seems bigger and even — dare I say — festive.

We’ve spent more time outside in the past few months, with happy hour beverages in hand and music playing over a Bluetooth speaker, than in probably the other seven years we’ve lived in this house combined.

If you don’t have a fence (or a backyard), you can recreate the same ambiance in another space. String lights around your deck or the balcony of your apartment or, hell, your living room. Whatever space you want to enjoy a little more in the evenings can be warmed up with a few strings of lights.