Give outdoor rooms the cozy feel of indoors

Lucky is the person who gets to use their outdoor room — deck, patio, pool or pavilion — year round. But in the Northeastern part of the country, setting up our outdoor rooms is an annual seasonal ritual.

And while I have often envisioned myself in a climate where I can use the garden 12 months of the year, I always remember how exciting it is each spring to anticipate these spaces, to rethink the particulars and imagine all the possibilities of decorating these outdoor areas with a fresh eye.

Here is my best tip — setting up your outdoor spaces is very much like decorating indoors — it's really a matter of positioning your furniture and accessories, in this case potted plants, garden ornaments, candles, pillows and statuary around focal points to create conversational areas, to capture a view or provide an intimate spot for dining al fresco under a shady tree, a canopy arbor or pergola.

Imagine each area of your back yard or garden as its own room with walls, either real or imaginary. Real walls might be a garden fence, a brick dividing wall or even a row of hedges while your imaginary walls could be anywhere — you might think of them as dividing lines — the area behind a line of chaises, where a path separates the lawn or a row of potted plants, or right outside your kitchen door where you'll set up your outside dining room.

Before I set up my own outdoor rooms, I check out my stack of gardening books and a binder of magazine tear sheets and snapshots of gardens that I've put together throughout the year. (These loose-leaf binders are my lifesavers whether created for decorating, hosting dinner parties or gardening — I love spending a Saturday updating them) Last spring my gardening notebook gave me ideas for what and where to plant different flowers boxes and planters, colors for flowers and fabrics, and furniture placement on the patio and around the deck.

After thinking about it for these past many winter months and early spring, here are some of the ideas that I'm going to try and pull off for this year:

Cozy up the outdoors. When I decorate indoors I love to layer my rooms with cozy, comfortable accessories that add warmth, color and drama — those personal touches that make any room inviting — such as pillows, throws, candles and hurricanes and smaller area rugs.