With spring lastly bringing warmer weather, some of us are preliminary to dust off the patio furniture and think concerning outdoor entertaining.

It’s a good time to think regarding outdoor lighting, as well. In fact, many of the same principles after great lighting for dining rooms could be applied to porches, decks, patios and verandas.

If you have an umbrella table, the options include tiny lights that attach to the spokes of the umbrella and larger lights (some of them solar) that attach to the pole and could shine up or down.

If you don’t have an umbrella,” says Moran, “there are bell-shaped lanterns, made of Sunbrella fabric, that are on a pole that goes up during the hole in the table.”

Another possibility for lighting up an umbrella: Pottery Barn’s beautifully patterned battery-operated paper lanterns ($14 in red or blue).

Strings of outdoor lights are an easy way to make glow. The options these days go far further than the typical Christmas-light or Chinese-lantern look and include lights shaped like dragonflies and even tiny crystal balls, Moran says.

Have a structure you could hang something a bit heavier from? Think about a chandelier-like wrought-iron fixture meant to hold candles.

Or, to cast warm candlelight on a table, there are votive holders intended to shield flame from the wind.

And there are all kinds of lanterns that can hang or sit on a table,” Moran says. (Pottery Barn has a great looking “Malta” lantern, in four colors, meant to hold a fat pillar candle. It costs $29.)

To bring extra pizzazz to an outdoor dining space, Moran suggests those backyard staples of 1950s cookouts: tiki torches, but not the cheesy bamboo models.

“We have torches made of solid copper that make an absolutely beautiful statement,” she says. “And they last forever.”