I’ve been eager to make a backyard movie night happen pretty much ever since we moved into this house four summers ago. Our backyard has undergone a massive transformation (and several smaller ones!) since then and it was finally time to get it crossed off my 101 in 1001 list (especially since it was included on and not crossed off my previous list!).

I got a few questions about our outdoor movie setup on Instagram and… I have thoughts! I did a ton of research before deciding on this projector and it is 10/10 — compact, easy to use, wifi-enabled, basically little room for improvement as far as I’m concerned!

I did much less research before ordering this outdoor movie screen and… it’s a lot of work to assemble and disassemble (despite the product description to the contrary… I don’t think the copywriter for that one ever had to put this together, ha). The screen is massive (which would be amazing if you’re hosting a large group or family reunion!) but the frame comes in many individual parts with lots of small screws that we don’t have a great plan for storing when not in use (you know, 99% of the year). Our current plan is to take off and fold the actual screen, remove just the legs, and store the open rectangular frame against a wall inside our garage so that we don’t have to break down or reassemble the entire thing from scratch , but just wanted to flag that there are probably more convenient and compact options (something foldable or something inflatable sounded pretty good as we were putting together this one!). Again it makes for a very pretty setup, but it’s definitely a two-person, couple-of-hours type of job. 🙂