This exciting book looks at your yard, patio, balcony or vacation beachfront as a room inside your home. Ideas for decorating and using your outdoor "room" abound - whether it's for making a reading nook or an outdoor bathing retreat.

This goes beyond the usual "spread a nice picnic in a field" ideas, or even "have a campout in your own backyard." Those sophomoric ideas are banished in the face of exhortations to hang Chinese lanterns from tree branches when serving sashimi from enamel plates for your own midday Asian Tea Ceremony, moving your computer and desk out to the patio for an al fresco work environment, and turning your old outbuildings into open-fronted art studios and meditation retreats.

Props are liberally suggested to make a sense of enclosure in each locale - often by setting up flowing fabrics like sarongs and saris, bright sheets and even textured cotton shower curtains. Other pictures depict ingenious uses for those ubiquitous bamboo screens for a sense of privacy, shade, or ambience.

The appendix provides concise instructions to make your own colorful beach tents, decorative chair covers and table skirts, floral tablecloths, rustic stools and garden benches.

While not every idea seems exceptionally practical (depending on your climate), I can vouch for the pleasures of setting up an outdoor shower and fireplace. There's nothing quite like a morning shower under blue skies, or an evening with the family, by firelight, under the stars. This book will put you in the mood to plan your own version of backyard heaven.

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Jill Florio, August 2003

Open Air Living - creative ideas for stylish outdoor living, by Enrica Stabile, 2001, Ryland, Peters and Small.