As gasoline prices increase, today's families may be spending more and more of their leisure time relaxing, cooking and eating outside at home, instead of traveling on the weekends. Because of the demand for less expensive areas for informal living and entertaining, outdoor living areas, patios, decks, terraces and screened porches have come into their own. These spaces are essentially outdoor rooms. Physical structures such as fences, shrubs and trees form the walls. Grass, brick, concrete, wood or flagstone may become your carpet, and the sky, your ceiling.

Regardless of what type of outdoor living area you want, how you use it, where it's built and why it's built will determine its character.

The key to planning the outdoor room is linking beauty to usefulness. Successful planning, aesthetically, involves matching the characteristics of your home to the patio or outdoor living area to create the feeling that they belong together.

The form, color, texture and design choices are important for bringing about a smooth transition from indoor to outdoor spaces. For instance, you may want to use some of the same construction materials for the patio that were used for the house or similar colors or texture. Repetition is a good unifier.

The outdoor living room should be integrated with the house in such a way that it is as important as the actual house design. This outside room can extend your living area beyond its walls, make inside rooms seem larger and provide a visual and emotional bond for you with the natural surroundings.

If the outdoor living area can be seen from inside the home, it should be planned and built to be attractive for each season. Study the outdoor space from the windows and doors inside your home and from different areas of your lawn.

In your planning, living areas, patios or decks located close to the indoor living room or family room can increase the live-ability and usefulness of your house.

Outdoor spaces for New York residents can be enjoyed from May to October.

Since the landscape design will affect your family and friends, ask yourself the question: Can I get what I want by designing the landscape myself, or should I hire a professional?

Landscape design encompasses the whole spectrum of planning from deciding on location of outdoor living areas, building materials, choosing the best plants, lighting and coordinating the installation. If you need many of the services mentioned, a professional can be a great help and the plan a professional designer makes for you can be implemented in stages if cost makes it necessary. Be sure to seek this advice at the earliest stage possible. The professional's duty to you, a property owner, will be to recognize your special landscape needs and develop a beautiful custom design.

Curt Peterson, Ph.D., is a landscape designer and garden specialist from Union Springs. He can be reached at curt.peters@hotmail.com