Todd and Cathy Ressler's elaborate outdoor kitchen at their suburban New Haven, Conn., home has custom cabinetry, a full bar, a pizza oven and a beer tap. Here, Todd, Cathy, and their kids Emma, seated, and Abigail, in the outdoor living space.
The space includes radiant-heat light fixtures, allowing the family to use the space in cooler months. (The Resslers are currently constructing a roof so they can cook outside on rainy days.)
The kitchen was installed by Brown Jordan Outdoor Kitchens, a Wallingford, Conn.-based company that manufactures custom cabinetry and distributes outdoor kitchen products. The Resslers' kitchen also includes a beer tap.
To avoid going back and forth between kitchens, the Resslers purchased a separate set of outdoor flatware and dinnerware.
The Resslers' outdoor kitchen
Mr. Ressler, who cooks most meals in the summer months, says he built the new kitchen because he's 'really into the outdoors, more than the indoors.'
Mr. Ressler, who cooks most meals in the summer months, says he built the new kitchen because he's 'really into the outdoors, more than the indoors.'
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The kitchen includes a gas-fired pizza oven.
The family says they like to spend nice days mostly outdoors.
The Resslers' backyard also features an outdoor shower
The project, which included elevating a deck to the level of their house, cost roughly $100,000.
Luis Jauregui, a builder, interior designer and architect in Austin, Texas, just completed a 16,000-square-foot home with a sprawling outdoor retreat for a Major League Baseball player, whom he declined to identify, in the Fort Worth suburb of Westlake, Texas.
Divided into several room-like areas, the backyard includes a formal living room, dining room, kitchen with a pizza oven and a casual living room, shown here, with a stone fireplace and television.
There's also a cooling-mist system and a mosquito-control system that discreetly sprays around the perimeter at night to debug the area. 'We designed almost the equivalent of another house outdoors,' says Mr. Jauregui.
A space in Palo Alto, Calif., designed by Cathy Schwabe, an Oakland, Calif., architect, has an outdoor bathtub.
Interior designer Campion Platt has an outdoor movie screen on the back patio of his 1926 bungalow in Palm Beach, Fla. An indoor projector projects movies onto a screen/wall along the backside of a swimming pool, which he says he often uses for watching movies at night and during parties.
Grimanesa Amorós, a multimedia artist living in New York's TriBeCa neighborhood, has a large rooftop terrace with several lounge areas, a hot tub, outdoor shower and full kitchen with a large grill, dishwasher and ice maker.
A row of skylights line the outdoor living space on the roof.
Ms. Amorós says that since cooking outdoors depends on the weather, dinner parties take on a fun, impromptu nature on nice days.
'I really look at the weather,' says Ms. Amorós. 'But my husband, he has cooked out here in rain and snow.'
One World Trade Center can be seen from Ms. Amorós' rooftop outdoor living space, which also includes an outdoor shower.
Interior designers say they are increasingly being asked to focus on exterior spaces. Kathleen Zbacnik, a San Diego-based designer, remodeled a 5,000-square-foot penthouse apartment with an outdoor room on a 550-square-foot balcony. With walls clad in stone and sienna travertine floors, the space has a wood-fired pizza oven, couches, a dining-room table and a television with surround sound that rises from a stone base.
Seattle-based landscape designer Scot Eckley says he designs gardens and backyards to function like rooms, with a typical price range between $80,000 and $250,000. Shown here is Mr. Eckley's home.
Mr. Eckley's property is shown here.
Mr. Eckley's backyard includes a living room-like area arranged around an outdoor fireplace. 
Mr. Eckley's clients Jenna and Jonas Sylvester wanted to extend their midcentury Modern style to their backyard, which they outfitted with a fire pit that doubles as a lounger, television nook and dining room table. 
