Enjoying an outdoor space is no longer the territory of summer alone. With the right accessories, you can enjoy your outdoor “home just a little bit away from home” year round and even at any time of the day or night. Your outdoor living area can take on all the comforts and qualities of your favorite interior with the right tips and tricks. Here are five ways that will help you extend your outdoor living season.

Incorporate Lighting

The setting of the sun doesn’t need to shut down your outdoor party. Moreover, you don’t need to relegate yourself to the usual rough and ready flood lights often used in exterior spaces. There are a wide range of lighting solutions for the outdoors available today that deliver ambient light that can stand up to the outdoors. You may even incorporate these lighting fixtures directly into an outdoor structure like a pergola. More ambiance? Use little “analog” touches, such as a hurricane lamp to create intimacy.

Create Coverage

Don’t let any type of weather chase you away from your outdoor haven. Today’s high-quality, retractable canopies are waterproof, stylish, and designed to give you as much or as little coverage as you want. For pergola owners, a retractable canopy can integrate right into the structure of your pergola, creating a very subtle and effective design. With the wealth of fashionable materials, a canopy can act as yet another accessory to warm up a space. For side coverage and protection from wind, look for curtains that can mount to an outdoor structure.

Provide Heat

The advent of winter doesn’t need to drive you indoors. There are several viable heating options for an outdoor space, including patio heaters and outdoor fireplaces. An outdoor fireplace or a fire pit can bring a good deal of ambiance to a space and make an outdoor area comfortable, even in the dead of winter. Patio heaters may not have the ambiance factor of a fireplace, but they are easy-to-use and pragmatic heating solutions for you outdoor living area that can add multiple weeks to your calendar of outdoor get-togethers.

Redecorate

An outdoor space is just like your bedroom or living room. Things can get dull after a while, and changing up a space, especially as the seasons turn, can keep your outdoor space enticing and vibrant. Select neutral tones for your furniture that you can improvise around and then use accessories such as throws and pillows to mix it up from season to season. You’ll never get bored and your outdoor space will be a cozy fit any time of the year.

Choose All-Weather Furniture and Accessories

Today’s outdoor furniture can come in high-quality, weatherproof materials and fabrics that really stand up to the elements. When selecting your pieces for your outdoor space, look into options such as synthetic rattan, which looks good year round and has the resilience to stand up to rain, sleet, or snow. Don’t forget to throw in some cushions and blankets to make winter get-togethers that much cozier.

Have you experimented with your own year-round outdoor living areas? Let us know your own tips and tricks in the comments below.