A beautiful yard is like a fabulously decorated home: well thought out, purposefully designed and carefully put together. If the impression your yard gives is as important to you as the interior of your home, you’ll want to invest time and thought into this outdoor extension of your living space. You’ll enjoy the rewards of your efforts for many years - and receive many compliments along the way!

Okay, to start: you’re the landscape architect - pull up a chair and let’s get to work! Let’s start by deciding:

What you want to use the space for.

This can be single or multi-purpose. Talk to everyone in the house and brainstorm together. You may want to keep the entire space in thick, green grass just for putting practice (single-purpose). Or you may want to have a space for the kids and another for adults (multi-purpose). Do you cook outdoors? Want a flower bed? How about an area for your pets?

The other thing that goes hand-in-hand with this is considering what you’re working with.

Is your land flat, hilly, rocky or full of trees?

How much sun/shade does each area get at different times of the day - and will it make a difference for that area’s purpose?

Do you have a noisy neighbor? You probably wouldn’t want to put a meditation corner near them.

Safety should be the first consideration for children’s play areas. Place them away from streets and alleys, don’t position the slide to end in the pond (unless that’s what you want) and keep Fido’s pooh-pooh area far away from their little feet!

Now get out a pencil and paper - or landscaping software - and map out the spaces, keeping in mind the "lay of the land" and other pertinent factors. For now just make general circles or squares to mark the space for each purpose.

What style you want to use.

Is it formal, informal, country, eclectic? And don’t forget to consider what’s already there, like the architecture of the house or the style of existing fencing. Consider the style of existing structures that will stay and how those styles will fit in your plan.

What color palate you’ll use.

Of course you must consider other existing colors: siding and trim on existing buildings and fences, landscaping colors, maybe even the color of a neighbor’s garage if it’s butted up to your yard.

My house is blue with white trim, and that’s what I chose to use for the outdoor decor: my chair cushions are a great blue floral, the stone deck is colored blue-gray and I just planted one of those gorgeous blue hyacinths next to the neighbor’s white fence. Now, I could have gone with a green palate because there’s so much green in the yard already (grass, trees), but that’s just me.

Now comes the fun - uh, I mean the hard part: shopping for everything you need. And color coordinating it. And making sure the styles coordinate. And having friends over to analyze the work (over food and drinks of course). And somehow, somehow managing to hold up under the enormous amount of praise and compliments you’ll receive for your labors.

It’s a tough job. But someone’s got to do it. Might as well be you!