Rita Konig My mother’s house in London has two terraces, one of which is used for alfresco dining.

I am in the process of selling my flat in London, so I am starting to think about the next place. One of the items on my wish list is outdoor space, something that I never craved before but for some reason is now a must-have.

It’s a terrace I am after; a garden, and the prospect of grass, fills me with utter dread. What I love is the way a room is enlarged by a courtyard or balcony that just extends the indoors out, since New York apartment living can feel very restrictive. At the moment I am in London at my mother’s house, which has terraces at either end of the living room. One is quite cozy and is often used by smokers after dinner; it twinkles at night with its perforated brass wall sconces and little outdoor fireplace. The other terrace is set up more conventionally, with a dining table. Both offer a pretty view, and a feeling that you can be outside without landing on the street. In fact, I hardly ever go out onto either terrace, but even now as I sit here writing, the door is open and all that greenery is just lovely to have nearby.

Rita Konig The other terrace is more of an outdoor sitting room, with a banquette, brass sconces, and an outdoor fireplace.

The smaller terrace is the one interests me more, because it really is like a little room; there is even a rug out there! There is also an awning that can come down at night, and wall heaters that allow the terrace to be used well into the fall.

For the model apartment that I am designing at Manhattan House, a condominium building on the Upper East Side, I want to put a banquette at one end of the wrap-around terrace, so that my fantasy tenant can lie out there on a Sunday morning with the papers and coffee, looking west over the spectacular skyline. The banquette on my mother’s terrace is exactly what I am after, possibly a little deeper and with an ottoman rather than a coffee table, to allow proper lounging.

I like outdoor furniture to have a lot of soft cushions; I can’t bear the skimpiness of those foam flying saucers that companies so often pass off for pillows. You want to sink back with the same depth of comfort you would expect indoors. If you are prepared to bring cushions in and out as you need them, I would recommend that you use proper down pillows and mix them with the more practical outdoor stuff. The foam and Sunbrella solution is perfect for the mattress part of a banquette and some of the firmer back pillows. You can use the more luxurious down-filled pillows in front. In a house I decorated upstate, the living room cushions simply go outside in the summer, and it works tremendously well. They are mixed with the outdoor things, and just make it feel a little more human and less like catalog living.

The other thing I like on a balcony is to have a garden bench facing toward the apartment. This requires a fairly deep balcony, and I know it sounds a little odd not to face out toward the view, but it looks much nicer from inside. You can add an end table covered with flower pots, and considering that you are looking out from your living room toward your terrace much more often than you look from your terrace to the living room, I do believe a terrace should be designed with that in mind.