Add Privacy And Shade To Your Fenced-In Backyard With This Creative Idea

Low fences, no shelter, and nosy neighbors make for an exposed backyard patio. If you're a household that loves to entertain guests or grill your dinner outdoors, that's far from fun. Pick the right patio awning and the hot summer sun won't beam down on you, but people can see right through those non-existent walls. Instead of looking up, look out and along that seemingly unhelpful fenceline. Invest in a few patio umbrellas, wall-mountable brackets, and a little ingenuity and you can transform those pesky pickets into sturdy umbrella stands. Simply affix the brackets to the fence, slide the umbrella pole into them, adjust the angle as needed, and voilà! Your backyard has leveled up.

Even if you share a fence with the most neighborly of neighbors, privacy still matters for your household's psychological comfort and physical safety. Privacy screens are becoming mandatory for new residential developments in many countries for good reason. If you're unlucky enough to have busybodies next door, shaking that feeling of being watched (creepy!) is priceless. When it comes to being comfortable outdoors, temperature-wise, the best color shade sail to keep your patio cool is a white or light hue. But heat isn't the only problem bestowed on us by the summer sun. The UV radiation it sends to Earth burns our skin and causes skin cancers. Deep tints better protect you from harmful UV rays. Pick a color in between light and dark to get two benefits for the price of one.

Considering how to pick the right patio umbrella size and shape is going to help you immensely with this DIY. The British government suggests a hedge (or a similar feature, like, say, a fence or an umbrella) 2 meters (about 6 ½ feet) tall will block a neighbor's view. Look for umbrellas that will match this height measurement when mounted on the fence. Do you belong to a homeowner association? Most HOAs have rules around property additions. Check with them before adorning your fence with umbrellas, whether the brackets you choose to use are permanent or not.

Make sure, too, to buy tilting umbrellas. We love the 1960s vibe of the ABCCANOPY 7½ foot patio umbrella with push button tilt that's about $35 at Walmart. It comes in 13 hues! Looking for something long-lasting? Head to Menards to invest in a Rockport 8-inch tilt market umbrella by Backyard Creations for about $38. There's no need to think about what you should be using to safely weigh down a patio umbrella stand because you're mounting the umbrellas on brackets. If your fence pickets have gaps, you can use a clamp style umbrella mount — pay about $25 for a steel bracket on Amazon. If not, you'll need a mount that screws into the fence pickets or posts, like the stainless steel umbrella clamp mount bracket set for almost $40 from Meruzy.

Plot out where you want the umbrellas to go on your fence. Consider the height of the umbrellas — that determines how far up or down the fence you'll mount the brackets — and the angle they'll need to be tilted to for maximum privacy and sun blocking. Use a carpenter's pencil to mark exactly where you'll mount the brackets, then drill or clamp them to your fence. You'll need an electric drill if you're using a wall-mounted bracket with screws. Once the brackets are securely in place, slide the unopened umbrellas into the tube. Open each umbrella one at a time and adjust them to provide maximum coverage on all fronts: prying eyes, searing summer heat, and skin-burning UV rays.

Many of these mounts work just as well on a deck fence as they do on a fence along a property's border. For example, Walmart sells a steel patio umbrella bracket designed to fit over a deck railing for under $20. It comes in various widths. Follow the exact same mounting instructions as the other brackets to create a private, shady deck patio. Don't want to — or can't (here's looking at you, renters) — mount anything to your fence? You could place regular ol' sand or water-filled umbrella stands on the ground along the fenceline and mount umbrellas into those instead. This works great with a short fence or one that's easy to see through.