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American homeowners spent years pouring money into their outdoor spaces. They're still barely using them.
A new national survey from the International Casual Furnishings Association, conducted independently by Wakefield Research among 1,000 U.S. adults, found that 77% of consumers underutilize their outdoor living space, with only 23% using it as much as they want to. The 2025 figure marks a marginal improvement over the previous year, when only 18% of consumers were spending as much time in their outdoor living spaces as they wanted to.
The gap isn't a matter of access. 85% of households have some type of outdoor space for their home, including porches, patios, balconies, and decks. Even though the infrastructure is there, the usage doesn’t follow.
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When roughly 8 in 10 households own a feature they keep wishing they used more, it points to a category-wide design problem rather than a consumer preference shift.
A Furniture Gap and a Comfort Gap
The survey suggests two forces are pulling people back indoors. The first is basic comfort.
When asked what they'd do differently with an updated outdoor space, survey respondents said they would do more relaxing (72%), spending time with family and friends (60%), eating al fresco (55%), socializing (48%), and entertaining (44%). The implication is that current outdoor setups aren't comfortable or functional enough to host the activities owners imagined when they bought the home.
The second issue is more concrete: 54% have little or no outdoor furnishings or need to replace everything. More than half of the country's outdoor spaces are, by their owners' own admission, effectively unfurnished.
The Shade Math Working Against Backyards
There's also a climate factor that rarely gets discussed in survey data but shows up the moment summer hits. Direct sunlight can add up to 15 degrees to the Heat Index. So, on a muggy 85-degree day, the "feels like" temperature might be 95 degrees in the shade, but as high as 110 degrees in the sun.
That single variable can render even an upgraded patio unusable from late morning through late afternoon during peak summer months, eliminating the very hours homeowners say they'd most like to be outside.
This is where structures like The Luxury Pergola are reshaping how owners think about backyard livability. A custom-built pergola with adjustable louvers gives homeowners control over sunlight, airflow, and rain exposure, extending the usable hours of an outdoor space. For owners frustrated that their patio sits empty between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., the custom pergola addresses the gap that furniture alone cannot.
Spending Is Still Climbing
Despite the underuse, homeowners are continuing to invest. According to studies, 59% plan to purchase new outdoor furniture or accessories for their space in 2025, with 39% planning to purchase multiple pieces of décor. Millennials are especially likely to make purchases (76%), and 57% give precedence to buying exactly what they want, even if it means paying more.
The financial case for the spending holds up. According to data published in the 2025 outdoor living analysis from This Old House, an overall landscape upgrade results in a 100% cost recovery of the $9,000 on average spent, according to the NAR. While installing a new patio costs an average of $10,500, homeowners can recover 95% of that, and 97 percent of realtors agree that curb appeal is important to attracting buyers.
In a renovation market where many high-ticket interior projects return far less than their cost, outdoor improvements have quietly become some of the strongest-performing investments in residential real estate.
The Bigger Picture
The data lands at a moment when the American home is already being rethought. Kitchens are doubling as cafeterias, spare bedrooms have become offices, and basements are now gyms. Outdoor space was widely expected to follow the same trajectory and become a true extension of the living room.
For most households, that conversion stalled. The survey suggests it didn't stall because people lost interest. It stalled because the underlying design, comfort, and shade infrastructure never caught up to the ambition.
Owners who are closing the gap are starting to treat outdoor space the way they treat indoor space: zoned, shaded, furnished, and built around how it will actually be used. The data suggests the rest of the country is poised to follow.
