For the first time in years I've got outdoor space and I do plan on decorating it when the weather warms a bit. i want it to feel like an extension of our house...but festive and colorful. It's a blank slate and I'm going to color all over it.

http://embritadesign.blogspot.com

oh, to see a deck not covered in snow!

That image is from one of my favorite apartments that appeared on AT - it was published in Metropolitan Home last year: House Tour: South Street Seaport

I just purchased the roof of my apartment in the village and will be putting a 1000 square foot roof deck there this spring. I cant wait to make it look fantastic.

We are renters but we did get a small balcony. It's probably right at 6' by 6'. Now that's it's winter, nothing is there but a lawn chair folded by the chair in case family needs to go outside and smoke. In the other three seasons, we had it mostly done - a small bistro patio table and two fold up chairs on one side and two nice lawn chairs with a small wood table between them. I realize it sounds crowded but since we were only out there if we had people over (the occasional smoker used it), we needed the seating. To disappoint everyone, no plants - two good reasons, one is that I do not have a green thumb and can't afford to rebuy plants constantly and two being the only thing that splits our balcony from the neighbors is a waist high fence-like wall.

Hey, ChrisGal, I think your reason number two NOT to have balcony plants would be my reason number one to have them! I don't know where you live or what the balcony exposure is, but barring the gloomiest northern exposure, I think my first act in the spring would be to put some containers along the fence-like wall and plant cardinal vine. It goes crazy with fern-like leaves and crimson flowers, growing dense enough to provide you with privacy----

I've enjoyed my little 12'x4' patio for a year now, especially in the spring, summer, and fall. I have some rose bushes, a fern, and a geranium. The patio is covered, so I keep an old chest of drawers out there for storage. I also have a cute little bistro table on an outdoor rug and a chaise lounge with a side table. Evenings on the patio are lit by hurricane lamps and citronella candles. It's a small space, but I've found some ways to make it home-y. I have also found that I'm one of only a few people in our complex who make use of this space.

In spring and fall, I love to eat breakfast out there, or cozy up with a book or my laptop. In the summer, it's littered with beach blankets, sandy flip-flops, drying bathing suits, and found seashells. This winter, I strung some white Christmas lights under the ceiling.

I've neglected it some this winter, but plan on sprucing it up in the next month or so - new plants, a new rug, some outdoor pillows for the lounge. I'm excited for warm weather so I can enjoy this outdoor room of my apartment again.

Aulaire -- I should have mentioned neighbors who are probably not even legal age to drink. As in they smoke outside and let their cat out there - not sure why they would do that on a second floor.

I really can't keep plants alive. I'm barely nursing one my fiance got on Christmas eve at work - it's looking more dead by the day. Plus even if it did live, where to put it in the winter - the apartment isn't that big and I refuse to have more than one indoor plant at once.

I keep wanting to question if they will allow us to hang some kind of outside curtain between the balconies - we are literally in the back of the complex and the balcony faces a train track, so it's not going to make them look bad.

I have the tiniest balcony in the world that is also screened off, but my boyfriend and I have determined to make the best of the space! We have two canvas folding chairs, a small table, christmas lights, and some Tibetan prayer flags strung up . . . and despite how tacky that sounds, it actually makes it feel pretty homey and like an extension of the indoors. Sometimes we'll go out there and have Sunday breakfast. :) Very pleasant.

My condo has a great terrace, it's the best feature of my home. I confidently (right or wrong!) make decisions about my interior space, but I can't quite imagine the possibilities for the terrace. And it's basically in my living space--it runs the width of my unit with floor-to-ceiling windows, so it's my view.
I have a couple of nice table sets, chairs for lounging, really beautiful contemporary planters, but it's all very geometric, monochromatic, and architectural.
I need some inspiration for when the snow melts!

You San Francisco people are cruel. It is so stinking cold here. We've been making ice sculptures on our balcony. (http://bromeliadliving.blogspot.com/2009/01/what-to-do-whe-its-icy-cold.html)

On the bright side, I can almost see the deck in your photo from my deck in Brooklyn.

we have a shared patio, that is basically ours - the neighbour never uses it. i can garden, he can bbq. lovely!

I love my back patio. I always wished it could be outside my livingroom instead of the bedroom so I could share it!!! but I have made it a very intimate space, it's a typical apartment patio, but with lots of plants, rope lights two chairs and I put up bamboo fencing for extra privacy. I'm getting ready to move into a new place & am so excited to have a great outdoor space on the ground level with some actual dirt!!!

Our small deck got snowed on shortly after we moved in, so we haven't done more than place a table and four chairs there so far. Come the thaw, however, I'm thinking pots of flowers and herbs. Stuff will need to be drought tolerant, though, since it will get a fair amount of sun most all day.

(This is a house, so I will actually have to contend with landscaping a new property, as well -- but that's beyond the scope of this forum.)

I wish we could do more with ours - but beyond furniture, I'm not sure where to head. All the furniture is hand-me-downs that I have. Afraid to go with expensive with such young people next door - afraid they'd steal it.

When I had a tiny SF apartment with a fire escape , I put plants and a bird feeder on it. The birds (no pigeons.. just little finches and sparrows) would hop onto the windowsill and onto my bed next to the window every morning. I loved the whole set-up (I had a view of the GG bridge, too, as I was on Russian Hill). I suppose I was all "Breakfast at Tiffany's" about my bohemian apartment and hanging out on the fire escape drinking wine in the evenings, contemplating my future. But the neighbors downstairs complained and the the whole thing was quashed. Seems not everyone likes birds. Or plants. Or young women hanging out on the fire escape.

Well having a lot on a fire escape well is a fire hazard - so I could see complaints. I guess I don't get why the downstairs neighbors complained - I figured the upstairs would.

ChrisGal, it was mostly the seed hulls blowing down. Alas.

(No, I didn't impede foot traffic. It was a big, terrace-sized fire escape.)

Ahh...just figured since I would have thought the landlord might have minded.

I think I'm most excited about decorating outdoors. We have a tiny backyard but plan to landscape the hell out of it to really make the most of it. With our long Australian summers I know we'll be out there a lot.

I love my bistro style patio table and chairs - they are going back this spring. I so need some cushions for them - but not sure what would look really good with the black grey wrought iron color (the patio floor is a greyish wood and the rails are white).

I'm debating between trying some real plants or trying to find some really nice fake ones in some great vases. The other two lawn chairs could be folded up in a corner until needed. I want to spend more time out there come spring.

I don't want to put anything out there though that wouldn't deal with Indiana weather - don't want to destroy anything. I keep thinking maybe an outdoor rug.

C'mon, ChrisGal, go for the real plants! Most people go through a phase in their lives were all the plants they own drop dead. Really! With just a little perseverance, the phase passes into history.

Don't consider growing plants a Matter of Life and Death, but as an experiment to see what works! And if you plant annuals, you don't have to worry about bringing them inside and being responsible for their tiny lives through the winter. They're supposed to croak at the end of summer!

Again I suggest cardinal vine (aka "ipomea", "cyprus vine") because around midsummer it goes crazy like kudzu and forms a dense wall. Coleus gives you lots of interesting color choices and makes a nice bushy plant. These are easy plants to grow and will get you over your black-thumb-of-death syndrome. I--and others, I'm sure--will be right here to talk you through it!