It’s that time of year when you’d like to throw open the doors and windows and admit fresh breezes and birdsong to the house. The spring issue of Decorating (a special-interest publication of Better Homes and Gardens) has a few ideas for how to bring the outdoors in:

¢ Strip off as many of the curtains and blinds as possible. You can hang them back up when it’s time to cozy up the house for fall. If that look seems too stark, hang sheers in light colors.

¢ Transform a ceramic or concrete urn or planter into a lamp. All the parts you need are sold at lighting stores.

¢ Hang lots of landscape paintings.

The magazine also has ideas for decorating smaller homes with human-scale rooms, as opposed to the cavernous rooms seen in more high-end design magazines:

¢ If you are re-covering furniture, ask the upholsterer to skip the skirts. Furniture with exposed legs takes up less visual space.

¢ Footboards on beds look almost like little walls – not a good thing in the middle of a small room. To get a tailored, luxe look without a footboard, attach a padded, upholstered headboard to a regular metal bed frame. Add a tailored dust ruffle in the same fabric as the headboard to carry the look all the way around the bed.

¢ Add crown moldings to the ceilings of small rooms that lack architectural interest. Increase the size of the moldings around doors and windows.

¢ Make a small, inexpensive chandelier look more elaborate by trimming it with glass baubles and beads.

¢ Keep window treatments – shutters, for example – consistent from room to room.

¢ Choose sofas and chairs with low backs and arms.