Besides warming weather and blooming landscapes, the best thing about spring is refreshing. That is taking stock -- of your closet, your wardrobe, your house -- and thinking "reboot."

This is especially important outdoors, where you hope to spend much time grilling, entertaining or just being a lounge lizard. But besides amping up your sangria game or finding a new fave craft beer, take a gander at the furniture. One dramatic piece can make all the difference. You've got plenty of options.

Last fall at the Casual Furniture Market in Chicago, outdoor furniture manufacturers introduced much of what you'll see in retail stores this spring and summer. And along with products from European shows in Paris and Milan, you'll spot a wealth of trends.

Tops among those: duplicating what works indoors. Like bar carts, and double-duty pieces, such as chaises with shelves or side tables with extra-high storage for stacking pillows not in use. Sideboards and consoles, some with built-in ice buckets. Motion furniture, though not just gliders, swings and swivels. Actual recliners -- Klaussner debuted a power model one in a weave that works by remote.

In addition, we're seeing increasingly clever use of materials, including pairings that add immeasurably to the design -- like colorful porcelain tables with teak tops at Gloster. Porcelain tops that double for stone, in beautiful slab-like installations on long tables. Here again, Gloster introduced a dining table in a beautiful matte black finish with subtle white veining.

The idea of mixed media is playing out more and more, and that overused buzzword, "eclectic" (still the best catchall that everybody gets), has been ingrained outdoors. Take style notes here: Try to go beyond the suite for sweeter options. This is one reason small drink tables, garden stools and poufs have taken off -- they come in fireclay, concrete, metal, wood -- in modern looks with colors and patterns that lend personality. Blend materials in one grouping and ground it with a striking rug, just like a well-designed interior.

Who better than the "Million Dollar Decorator" to show you how? Martyn Lawrence Bullard designed a few outdoor collections for Frontgate, and the debuting examples look like a million.

"I work with clients that have a 'sky's the limit' attitude and know great design when they see it," says Bullard. "It's most important, for me, to have my personality stamped in every item. What we are doing is injecting that personality, that design into a very curated collection that can take high design to millions of homes."

For Bullard, it's every bit about comfort as it is style. "I really love to be outdoors sitting on indoor furniture," he says. "I want that luxury. I want that depth. I want that comfort."

Of course, there are Moroccan notes, whose signature geometric motifs often appear in Bullard's work, like tile for Ann Sacks and wallcovering for Cole and Sons.

"Moroccan design is having a bit of a moment," he says. "Big graphic fabrics in black and white, intricate tile work tabletops, variegated antique nickel hand-hammered finishes and geometric shapes of the Holland lantern (part of the collection) all spring out of my love for (Morocco's) influence.

Although there is much rooted in tradition, and even with materials, like metal and wicker looks, Bullard also imagined a modern grouping called Sloane, especially powerful in white. He teams the white powder-coated stainless steel seating with comfortable upholstered pieces and a touch of weathered wood for balance.

White furniture frames continue to attract attention, dramatic in all-white or set off with bold fabrics in colors or patterns that pop, as well as teak. Michael Vanderbyl's collection for JANUS et Cie has simple lines, and the teak grid insets are classic.

But look out for matte black or the deepest charcoal. As it is with interior furnishings as well as dinnerware, the no-sheen black is emerging as a striking tour de force. Barclay Butera's newest chair for Castelle Luxury embraces classic style, with a bit of Hollywood glam.

Woven looks still are robust, with some dynamic examples in media you wouldn't expect. At RH, for example, a new collection by Toan Nguyen features a bold weave of wood. It hits all the style points: large-scale and a weathered, driftwood-y finish.

Wicker weaves remain in vogue with tonal geometrics adding interest, and you'll also find them in traditional and modern shapes.

Rope and string offer another stylish counterpoint, especially in tandem with upholstery. A new sofa from Palecek called Avila has a teak frame and a woven frame with a grid pattern. The gray weave is set off with white upholstery.

Comfort, of course, remains key, especially evidenced by a lot of deep seats and modular sectionals with plenty of length for stretching out. There are plush chenille upholsteries, but no more luxurious covers than leather. At Maison and Objet in January, visitors were raving about the slouchy slipcover-look sofa and inviting chairs at the Italian brand Baxter. Performance fabrics continue to amaze, but this outdoor leather, especially in a fetching indigo-denim shade, stood out from the crowd.

In addition to outstanding performance fabrics, look to outdoor rugs for a bump up in technology. Brands like Tai Ping, Doris Leslie Blau and Perennials are among those that offer plush rugs that are wool lookalikes. And Liora Manne's new painterly rug, which looks like drops of pale-hued watercolor, is art underfoot.

Fire tables have far from flamed out. With more consideration to the tables, manufacturers are focusing on shapes and materials to set them apart. And lanterns have become more relevant -- as small architectural accents and mood setters -- either by real candlelight or a lookalike flickering with battery-operated pillars.

At Crate and Barrel, one pillar even has a timer to automatically turn off in five hours and relight at the same time each day.

For many, styling an outdoor space is getting a boost from Instagram, Pinterest and shelter publications for leads. Whatever style you fancy for your outdoor nest, it soon will be time to head for the most comfortable lounge out of the house. Let's get this summer party started!

Sources

-- Anthropologie, 800-309-2500, www.anthropologie.com

-- Baxter, at DDCNYC, 212-685-0800, www.baxter.it

-- Castelle, 855-612-9800, www.castelleluxury.com

-- Elaine Smith, 561-863-3333, www.elainesmith.com

-- Exteta, through Bradley Terrace, info@bradleyterrace.com; www.exteta.it/en

-- Fermob, www.fermob.com/en

-- Frontgate, 888-263-9850, www.frontgate.com

-- Gloster, 434-202-5521, www.gloster.com

-- JANUS et Cie, 800-245-2687, www.janusetcie.com

-- Liora Manne, 212-989-2732, www.lioramanne.com

-- O.W. Lee, 800-776-9533, www.owlee.com

-- Palecek, 800-274-7730, www.palecek.com

-- RH, 800-762-1005, www.restorationhardware.com

-- Woodard, 800-877-2290, www.woodard-furniture.com

Both floors and ceilings often are referred to as the fifth wall. But what's on the floor has more gravitas in the design scheme. Rugs can warm and complete a space. They can draw the eye as a focal point, with texture, color and pattern, potentially creating a major impact. And the best designs are so much like art, you almost hate to walk on them.

At international shows, in showrooms and in galleries, you do get a better sense of the rug as art, as very large examples are hung dramatically on walls or displayed prominently on static or movable wings. Like a painting or textile art, it is easier to appreciate this way, stepping back from it and then leaning in to absorb the weave and pattern, especially their subtleties.

One of the most talked about introductions at Maison and Objet in Paris was a collection by Juan Montoya by Stepevi. A showstopping rug called Moon Island is rich in geometry, intersecting and layering circles with extraordinary depth, matte and sheen, some with an almost lacey overlay.

Much of the beauty at the high end of rug design can be attributed to the marriage of Old World tradition and modern thought and technology, as well as new ideas about materials and how to use them. Besides wool, which can range in quality depending on its lanolin content, silk, the silk-like synthetic viscose, cashmere, linen, hemp and even metallic threads may be woven in.

"We revere the history, which goes back hundreds and hundreds of years," says Shea Soucie, principal with partner Martin Horner in the Chicago-based design firm Soucie Horner. In 2012, they launched Shiir with purveyor Oscar Isberian. "We don't want to simply recreate. We want to innovate. That's why we embroider, we oxidize, we mix materials. We take the best of tradition and then use it as the basis of something new."

Designers like Soucie and Horner, who visit some of those tradition-rich rug factories in Nepal, Turkey and India, come away with a better appreciation for the craft -- as well as inspiration for what is possible.

For a time, worn rugs overdyed in brilliant hues such as teal, emerald, cobalt and magenta were trending. Some of the threadbare rugs are repurposed vintage; others are simply distressed to appear well-aged with desirable "patina." This look especially suits boho style and resonates with a younger audience, who appreciate the modernity of bold colors on traditional motifs.

As in furniture trends, a modern aesthetic has gained followers. Now some of those faded looks actually are woven into the rug itself, creating the feeling of a fresco painting, watercolor, a photographic image that's barely there, or a pattern with an ethereal or misty quality, like a veil of fog. In a new collection for Tai Ping, from a distance, one rug reads as a solid coral red. But close up, there's movement, in fact, inspired by an urban landscape. At nanimarquina, the Shade collection takes its palette from the sunrise and sunset, in an ombre effect on a wool flat weave.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, there are rugs startling in their realism, like a larger-than-life dark-ground floral from fashion designer Alexander McQueen (Sarah Burton has been at the helm of the brand since McQueen's death in 2010), for The Rug Company. The bouquet seems to jump out of the rug's center. Some imagery is the result of photography and digital technology that provide patterns for weavers.

And to suit mid-century modern and emerging art deco decor, graphic geometrics have never been more robust. At cc tapis, a new collection was inspired by an 1884 novella that explores dimensions as if they communicated with one another, with a graphic of overlapping geometries.

Other modern rugs are like sophisticated patchworks or samplers, including Italian architect Piero Lissoni's Hunua, which mixes solids and patterns like herringbone, and German designer Sebastian Herkner's linear planes with gridded checkerboards for The Rug Company.

In the past, lush thick rugs were considered the creme de la creme, and in antique rugs, thread counts are coveted -- the more per square inch, the finer. Though thread counts still are quoted, there are many factors that translate to value. It can take thousands of hours to weave small portions, so lead times can range up to six months for some custom rugs.

"A lot of people equate thickness with luxury, but that misses the mark," says Soucie." What's luxurious to you might be a high-pile cashmere rug; what's luxurious to me might be a thin, flat, oxidized silk rug. Thickness is not a barometer of luxury.

"From our perspective, a luxurious rug results from two things: the artistry and the soul that comes from a handweaver who learned his craft at the knee of his parents and grandparents."

Mixing yarns and threads adds nuance and luster, as do pile variations. Soucie says that she and Martin actually lead with fiber instead of design. "We take cashmere or silk and play with it. How does it move? How does it respond to light? What's its sheen and its hand? Once we've explored the inherent qualities of a fiber, only then do we begin to think about design and how we can create a pattern that best exploits those qualities. That results in rugs that truly are, as we like to say, art underfoot."

Nature still is probably the go-to muse, whether it's a landscape, a river stream or Cotswold moss or the sky -- sunrise, sunset and the constellations.

Colombian-born Juan Montoya, a highly regarded modernist who has had a design practice in New York since the 1970s, developed a collection around the moon. "I love circles," says the interior designer. "I love geometry. So the moon was inspiration -- contemplating it at different times of the day, and how it moves, as well as the constellation of the universe. Just a shift in colors and sheen gives the carpets extraordinary depth."

Artists also have inspired rug design. One pattern in Larry Hokanson's Istorii collection features a rich art nouveau motif. It's a homage to Gustav Klimt, whose shimmery paintings sometimes had touches of gold leaf. Hokanson was captivated when he saw the works at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he was a student.

As with art, rugs can be a powerful tour de force in a room's design.

"Rugs are very important," says Montoya. "Not as an object by itself. It's a composition that integrates architecture and interior design and decoration. And yes, it can be hung as a tapestry."

"We always encourage designers to begin with the rug," says Soucie. "It's a natural starting point because it is, after all, the foundation of a room. When you're talking about a completely handmade custom product, you've got to allow enough lead time for it to be woven. It's so worth the wait in every way. There's really nothing like a rug that's uniquely suited for a particular room."

True luxury.

Sources

-- cc tapis, www.cc-tapis.com

-- Edelgrund, www.edelgrund.com; website is under construction, contact info@edelgrund.com

-- Golran, available through Moroso, New York, 212-334-7222, www.golran.com

-- Hokanson Inc., 616-954-3200, www.scottgroupstudio.com

-- nanimarquina, 646-701-7058, www.nanimarquina.com

-- Soucie Horner, 312-775-0202, www.souciehorner.com

-- Stark, 844-407-8275, www.starkcarpet.com

-- Stepevi, 212-466-0400, www.stepevi.com

-- Tai Ping, 212-979-2233, www.houseoftaiping.com

-- The Rug Company, 646-762-0701, www.therugcompany.com

At the recent Heimtextil, the largest international show for home and interior textiles at Messe Frankfurt in Germany, one booth at the annual trends exhibition got a spirited conversation going.

It was about color -- warm and cool, and specifically red and blue -- and the conclusion was one that surprised. Red was framed as a relaxing color, with evolving spectrums from pink to saturated oxblood, creating a warm glow in interiors, "wrapping inhabitants in a comforting blanket that promises relaxation and calm."

Blue, conversely, was described as stimulating. "Washes of clear, cool blue tones imbue designs with clarity and purpose. Gradients of the color are applied to materials that trap, refract and reflect light, enhancing their ephemeral impact, in order to invigorate and awaken."

Exploring trends from all over the world -- colors, patterns, materials, topics like micro home or remade upcycling pavilions or craftsmanship ateliers -- is part of the must-see Theme park organized each year, says Thimo Schwenzfeier, director of marketing communications for Messe Frankfurt. This year's message: The Future is Urban.

One trend and design studio, Franklin Till, studied research on circadian rhythms and how they relate to sleep and stress. The firm's insight: "It has been suggested that blue light negatively affects the production of melatonin, a hormone that plays a key role in regulating sleep patterns, while warm red light aids its production. So, contrary to popular belief, scientific research has proven that blue light stimulates, while red light calms us -- which is why we are always advised not to go near blue-light screens before going to bed."

Curious, then, are some of the choices for color of the year. On one side, Pantone led with Ultra Violet -- a mix of red and blue. Paint manufacturer Benjamin Moore opted for red, specifically, Caliente, AF-290.

A team of seven Benjamin Moore researchers visited 30 cities in 12 countries, attended 23 industry shows and reviewed more than 42,000 pictures to come to this pick. Here are the words they use to describe this color: Radical. Dramatic. Happy. Smart. Desire. Primary. Symbolic. Confidence.

"Caliente is the signature color of a modern architectural masterpiece," says Ellen O'Neill of Benjamin Moore. "(It's) a lush carpet rolled out for a grand arrival; the assured backdrop for a book-lined library; a powerful first impression on a glossy front door. The eye can't help but follow its bold strokes. Harness the vitality."

There always have been avid aficionados of both red and blue, whether it's in clothing or interiors. And each color, solo, can be explosive -- think Yves Klein blue, that electric signature shade of cobalt, or fire engine red.

Is there any other color but red that says Ferrari? And how about a red cocktail dress in a sea of safe black? And though hot peppers can be green, we mostly think red when we hear "caliente."

Couture rug designer Emma Gardner is on board with her new "Splash" rug, a romantic and painterly pattern with a watercolory look emphasized by the combination of silk with wool.

"Lucky for us, a rich range of reds is back, bringing energy and vivacity to interiors," she says. "Chili red is caliente. When combined with muted tones, it can happily play an accent role, blending graciously into a softer overall environment."

When Chicago designer Elissa Morgante of Morgante-Wilson Architects worked with a client who was "all about color," for the interiors of her home, there was one room she was set on.

"She wanted a red dining room," says Morgante, "because the color is very active, gets your juices running." The walls are painted in a flat finish, and Morgante used a shade of red for the velvet drapery ("a soft touch") and in mohair seats ("used in a taut way").

Morgante, though, admitted it's hard to get people to jump into using a lot of red. "There's more comfort in doing a red pillow than a red sofa."

Caitie and Maureen Smithe of Walter E. Smithe Furniture in Chicago are excited about incorporating reds. They see Caliente as bold and seductive, radiant and reassuring. For those who want to embrace the trend but not fully commit, they recommend painting your front door red "for the most inviting entrance in the neighborhood."

"Pair red with trendy golds for a glam look," say the Smithes. "Or tone it down with subtle grays or neutrals to bring out its warm undertone. Spice up your eating area by bringing in some of the hue with table linens and accessories."

While a red kitchen counter might be an option, some might be more comfortable with a red-striped towel. Here are some other ways to introduce red:

-- Consider appliances. It can be a small one like a mixer (KitchenAid offers the largest range of hues) or a toaster. But reds have been part of a larger appliance line at Bertazzoni and BlueStar. The latter pays attention to fashion colors (its other big introduction this year is Pantone's color of the year, Ultra Violet). Their colors extend to range hoods and now refrigerators. Of course, Wolf ranges offer the option of its trademarked red knobs, a signature since 1933. These can be a launch point for materials like tile, hardware and accessories. And Smeg, which features red across its line of 1950s-inspired small and large appliances, recently teamed up with Fiat to produce a beverage refrigerator using actual Fiat 500 parts (one color choice, of course, is red). Fair warning: It's no novelty, and meticulously crafted with a $12,000 price tag.

-- Choose a piece of furniture. So many are leery of integrating bold red seating into a room. But a single chair, sofa or cabinet can be a fabulous statement piece. Consider the medium, as well. Stained or lacquered wood, matte or with a sheen, even high-gloss, as in an angular cocktail table from Roche Bobois or in a red combined with clear acrylic Chinese-inspired bench at Pagoda Red. Powder-coated aluminum is another option, one also suitable for adding a jolt to the outdoor room. One handsome bench designed by Russell Woodard for Woodard Furniture is available at Design Within Reach. Or you might be seduced by a more traditional tufted sofa called Alexis from Walter E. Smithe.

-- Light up with red. Glass, resin, metal or even paper shades can be striking on wall sconces or pendant lighting. Or use a mobile or a red mirror, especially in an unusual shape, to introduce a little fun.

-- Think about the bath. Imagine the wow of a red faucet. Architect Arne Jacobsen actually did 40 years ago when he designed the Vola faucet -- still timeless and energizing. The recent popularity of freestanding tubs also has inspired some dramatic color combinations, such as red on the outside and white inside.

-- Step on it. An area rug, solid or patterned in red, can engage, even in smaller sizes like doormats or runners.

-- Tile or solid surfaces lend pizazz. A shower wall, backsplash, floor or countertop in red is dynamic, even in geometric or patterned compositions with other colors.

-- Add art. Draw your attention to the walls with art, from monochromatic to red-dominant.

-- How about windows? Use stationary draperies to frame windows or Roman shades -- this expression can be very dramatic, played with a neutral cream, gray or even navy interior. Repeat the hue with strategic accessories for punctuation.

-- Accessorize. Art glass, bowls, flowers or a large bowl filled with red apples works.

-- Grab your paintbrush. Of course, the easiest way to make a significant change is to paint a wall or a room. The impact of a color like Caliente is totally affected by what you team it with. Shades of white really make it pop and keep it light. Red walls work in just about any room and make doors lively.

Whether you think of salsa when you think of red -- hot hot hot -- or perceive it as mellow cocooning hue that's more chill, with all the choices in so many areas of design, it'll be a cool one.

Sources

-- Alessi, 877-842-2224, www.alessi.com/us_en

-- Anthropologie, 800-309-2500, www.anthropologie.com

-- Benjamin Moore, 855-724-6802, www.benjaminmoore.com

-- BlueStar, 610-376-7479, www.bluestarcooking.com

-- Currey and Company, 877-768-6428, www.curreycodealers.com

-- Design Within Reach, 800-944-2233, www.dwr.com

-- Emma Gardner Design, 877-377-3144, www.emmagardnerdesign.com

-- Michael Amini Furniture, for more information, go to www.amini.com

-- Pagoda Red, 888-878-8628, www.pagodared.com

-- Roche Bobois, 212-889-0700, www.roche-bobois.com

-- Smeg, 212-265-5378, www.smegusa.com

-- Sub-Zero Wolf, 800-222-7820, www.subzero-wolf.com

-- Vola, through Quality Bath, 800-554-3210, www.qualitybath.com; www.vola.com

-- Walter E. Smithe Furniture and Design, 800-948-4263, www.smithe.com