Decorative Outdoor Utility Box Covers

Think Outside The Box

How to Screen Large Utility Boxes With Plantings | This Old House

To maintain the rustic vibe of the yard and the home overall, this idea incorporates the use of a small carriage stacked on top of the transformer.

It is edged with brick stones and an assortment of plants form a dense planter out of the carriage. This is definitely a one for the books kind of hiding a utility box in your yard.

Small Pipes And Drainage Covers

Similarly, you can easily hide small electrical boxes or sewer lids in a landscape design with shrubs or flowers. Ensure to plant evergreen foliage for year-round coverage, and you’re set! Another option is to purchase appropriately-sized faux rock covers. Designed to look like boulders or large rocks, these cover smaller boxes and vertical pipes and are both effective camouflage and easy to remove!

Combine A Pot & Trellis For Height & Mobility To Hide The Utility Box

If you want to have something mobile AND tall, you could have a pot or container with a trellis component.

A futuristic example, but you could have a mobile pot with a trellis .A few of these, with a lower total height, could easily hide your utility box.

This could be a purpose built item, or perhaps just adding a trellis to a normal pot to grow some climbers or taller plants against. Be careful to not create a wind trap set up where the container could blow over in large gusts of wind. The taller the trellis, the heavier the base will probably need to be.

Like with the pots, you want to make sure you can move them if needed. Or the service provider can move them and not break them. So this might require a little bit of figuring out to ensure it provides enough cover while being light enough to move .

Also make sure the pots/containers are secure in your yard and not likely to be stolen. The same approach we looked at above anchor point and chain may work here as well.

Creative Landscaping Ideas To Hide Utility Boxes

Categories Garden Landscaping

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You have beautifully landscaped your house, carefully designing and implementing the garden of your dreams. But the unsightly utility box continues to stick out, seemingly mocking you every time you step outside to enjoy your lovely garden. How can you possibly disguise the necessary eyesore? After all, its designed for, well, utility, not aesthetics. As you brainstorm landscaping ideas to hide utility boxes, take a look at this list of tips and ideas for beautifying even the most awkward utility box.

Combine These Ideas To Cover Your Utility Box In A More Creative Way

Pin by Get Outdoors on Utility Box Cover

There is no reason you need to stick to only one of the ideas above. You can try to combine these different techniques and approaches, giving you a mix of mobility, safety and coverability.

Ive mentioned before that the best way to effectively hide something is to make your solution what you are doing to cover it blend into the surrounding garden.

This is one interesting way to hide a utility box. The wagon covering the box is a great idea. Its an interesting focal point and can support more greenery.All of this, however, is assuming it can move.

You can take many of the ideas above and stretch them beyond the immediate utility box area, so they expand into other parts of the yard.

That way your solution be it pots, fences, mobile elements etc. dont stand out either. They flow into the rest of the garden bed, or lawn, or whatever else sits in the space.

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How To Hide An Air Conditioning Unit

Are you creating a modern farmhouse vibe?

This AC-concealing fence is an ideal combination of rustic and contemporary styles.

Use a similar ultra-simple shape to bring the natural, unfinished wood into this century. After exposure to the sun and rain, the wood achieves a lovely weathered look that enhances your space.

Hide A Utility With A Mobile Trellis Screen Or Fence

Focusing on our mobile theme, you could use fences, trellises or screens on casters or wheels instead of setting them into the ground.

Depending on how theyre made, they may not suit your needs. But perhaps if theyre a relatively small height they could work quite well.

A semi-movable lattice screen built by Gary J Wood. You could add small planter boxes at the base to support climbers if you wanted more colour.

You could opt for lockable wheels, or chain them to anchor points if theft is a concern. Or make them wide enough to be easy to roll, but difficult to pick up and take away.

As I said, you can add planter boxes along the base to support climbers if you like to add colour. This whole approach should be easy enough for you or any service providers to move, while providing a good backdrop to any part of your yard.

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Using Potted Plants To Hide Utility Boxes

Plants are a simple and effective way to hide a utility box. Rather than plant them directly into the ground where they stand a chance of being destroyed you might be able to plant in pots or containers instead.

There are a few positives to this approach:

You can move the pots if service providers need access for routine maintenance or emergencies

You dont have to deal with any concerns digging or planting in a dangerous area

You are less likely to have plants or items damaged or destroyed should service providers need access

You can place gravel, mulch or another material around the utility box, reducing maintenance costs and providing a reasonable surface for the pots to sit on

Although this image doesnt show pots around a utility box, its not difficult to imagine these laid out around one, perhaps on gravel or mulch. These would be difficult to move without assistance an extra person or trolley.

There is one potential negative, which is people may steal the smaller or easier to take pots.

A solution may be to use a thin metal rope/chain and pass it through all your pots through some drainage holes in the base, or added loops. Lock the chain around a sunken or heavy anchor point thats far away from the utility box, and bury most of it beneath the gravel or mulch.

How To Hide Utility Boxes And Wires

make Thin CSA Concrete Garden Boxes PART 4 – cast garden forms

Are your utility boxes and wires, like your water meter or the electrical meter, distracting to the eye? Whether they are located at the side of your home or at the patio, there are several clever ways to cover or camouflage them!

Repurpose old vinyl shutters to act as a screen to cover up your utility boxes! Easy to move or take down for the winter or whenever you need to access the utility boxes.

A louvered screen, built with the louvers fixed at an angle, works well in providing an AC unit adequate air ventilation. Plus, it looks so nice, especially when painted in white! This is a more permanent solution to hiding your AC unit.

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Fence Picket Ac Unit Cover

This creative hiding place brings new meaning to the phrase picket fence.

Part storage, part work of art, it adds a charming rustic vibe to the exterior of your home.

A multi-tiered base highlights the geometric design, and the varying wood-grain patterns contrast beautifully with brick, siding, or even stone.

Ways To Hide Outdoor Eyesores

Having air conditioning, water on demand, and electricity in our homes are all wonderful things, but they require bulky and unsightly machines and cords that litter the outside of our houses. Cover them up with these 13 ways to hide outdoor eyesores and improve your curb appeal!

A note before we dive into these awesome ways to hide outdoor eyesores: always check with your local utility companies on policies for covering up your water meters, electrical meters, trash bins, and AC units. Some of these policies might have to do with clearance, access for meter readers, and adequate ventilation for AC units.

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Screen The Utility Box With A Trellis Screen Or Fence

Similar to pots or containers above, you could place a trellis, screen or fence around the utility unit.

If they are fixed, youll need to ensure they are set a safe distance back. Be aware of the footing placement for any uprights to make sure they are clear of potential underground wires.

This example hides some other house utilities, but the concept is the same. A nice lattice screen can form a good backdrop for a garden bed or something you just add climbers to.

The benefit of using a man-made screen is you can immediately build it to an appropriate height rather than wait years for plants to grow and provide coverage. If you do like this aesthetic, Id suggest having a larger offset around your utility box than the example above.

Create A Specially Designed Garden Bed Around The Utility Box

Faux Rock Landscaping Utility Box Covers at BrookstoneBuy Now!

If you are looking to plant a permanent garden around the utility box, provided you leave enough room around the box, it should be manageable. As mentioned, be aware of any potential underground cables or wires travelling from or to the utility box.

If you can, avoid planting trees. Their wide and deep root systems can crack, strangle or break protective elements around wiring, not to mention the wires/cables themselves.

If you do want to include trees, your best bet may be to try and limit the size of the rootball the area the roots can spread to. You could widen the hole you place the tree in and line it with a root barriermesh/layer. This will work to restrict the spread of the roots, thereby limiting the size and spread of the trees.

Id suggest leaving the floor/base free, so the roots are not completely enclosed, but you do want to ensure the surface roots wont spread too far. Be sure to check any potential plantings trees or otherwise with a local expert to find something suitable.

Alternative options could be shrubs and grasses. They tend to have shallower root systems. You should still avoid planting these above underground wiring not just for safety, but because they may need to be accessed at some point. And, as we know, anything that needs to be moved by a service provider is likely to be destroyed.

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Backyard Fence Made Of Pallets

Do you have a stack of old pallets hanging around in the garage?

Transform them into a gorgeous privacy fence that shields large items from view.

This project showcases the different colors and textures of the palette wood using a fun chevron pattern. An exterior wooden frame gives the fence a crisp, polished look.

Outdoor Garbage Can Storage

Are you working with limited space?

A raised platform and a simple wooden screen are plenty to hide your garbage can from people walking or driving by on the street.

The platform also protects the can itself, deterring pests and insects. A small potted plant adds just the right burst of natural color.

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Ideas To Cover Ugly Electrical Boxes In Both Corners Of My Backyard

LIRR1926 on Mar 08, 2018They sell faux rocks for situations like this. If that’s not to your liking you might buy/build a small 2 or 3 sided trellis and grow a vine on it.

on Mar 08, 2018Use either lattice or pallets and make a three sided surround. Then it can be a trellis for plants or items can be hung from is as decoration.

Elizabeth Michels Pinizzotto on Mar 08, 2018I used scotch broom and decorative grass plants around mine and I don’t really notice them much anymore. Good luck!

Nancy Turner on Mar 08, 2018The utility company has the right to remove or destroy anything that is preventing them from accessing the box that they own. If you do anything, make sure it is something that will be moveable so that they can work on it unencumbered. Perhaps a couple of movable pots of plants that would screen it from your view would work. Just make sure it would be something that they won’t mind moving out of the way. Perhaps call the utility company, I am sure they would have a few suggestions of what the workers would find acceptable.

Storage Baskets & Boxes

Utility Box | Ooni Accessories

Goodbye, clutter. Cleaning up is easy with storage baskets and boxes to help you corral everything from laundry and toys to random odds and ends.

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