The bright sun, the buzzing cicadas, and the heady aroma of your neighbor’s barbecue sizzling away can mean only one thing: Summer, in all its longer-days, shorter-sleeves glory, has arrived. And with it comes the urge to spend as much time as possible in the garden or on the patio, generally under the bright (or star-studded) sky.

But transferring your everyday routines from indoors to out can be such a pain, between the bugs, the heat, and all the heavy lifting (who always ends up schlepping the kids’ toys and grown-ups’ drink orders back and forth through that screen door?).

The solution is all in the setup: With some key props, a little preemptive planning, and the bright ideas on the following pages, everything you, your family, and your guests need to live the outdoor life from dawn to way past dusk will be right there, within easy reach. So pack it up and take it outside.