There’s something about the great outdoors that’s good for a person. Those things that make you happy outside can be brought indoors as well. This season, use the wonders of nature to inspire your organic interior design and fill your home with a breath of fresh air every day. Here are six ways you can take some lessons from Mother Nature and use them to enliven every room in your house.

1. Natural Colors and Light

The earth tones living room is making a comeback. Browns of every shade are finding their way in. Not just the beiges, but the medium and darker tones too. Offset a dark brown with softer colors and lots of natural or natural-looking light. Or, while it’s not for everybody, an all-around medium-to-dark brown look creates a cozy, tucked-in atmosphere in a den or bedroom. Even wood paneling, overworked in the 60’s and 70’s, can today be a part of a cottage look that evokes pleasant times spent in the countryside.

Natural interior design doesn’t begin and end with browns. Greens of all shades, as well as mustards and clay-like colors, have their place. A mixture of dark and light furniture is more rustic and outdoorsy than having the same brown all around. You can mix in some white as well, not only contrasting it with browns but also highlighting whites and ivories with green. Whitish wood with greenish-blue accents invokes the seaside version of the outdoors.

If your room has lots of windows, use natural light to your advantage. If not, create a natural light feel by downplaying the source of artificial light. Use recessed light and multiple sources of light including lamps with natural-look shades. Large artwork, painting, photos and tapestries featuring nature themes enlarge and brighten a room

2. Choose an Outdoor Motif

The outdoors for you may be forest, prairie, desert or seashore, and all of these are good sources for your natural interior design. Decorate your entire home with a theme or emphasize that motif in a room or two. Maybe your idea of nature isn’t a particular region but is rather the flowers, trees, birds and creatures found just beyond your back door. A specific well-loved creation such as cherry trees, bunnies, robins or rosebuds is as valid a representation of the outdoors as any. Use your favorite to adorn towels, curtains, bedspreads, pillows and artwork. Display your special representative of nature’s wonders in shelves and in shadow boxes, as well as on wall art hung throughout your home.

3. Natural and Outdoorsy Furniture

The same materials that give porch furniture an outside look can be used in your living room and bedroom. Wicker, cane and bamboo don’t mind being brought indoors in the form of chairs, side and coffee tables, and even couches and sectionals. Mix outdoor-style furniture with modern and contemporary pieces. The wicker adds texture and lightness. Light-grained wood chairs with dark cushions fit right in with a natural theme.

Rough wood furniture is another nature-friendly option. Wire brushed or distressed wood works in shelves, tables and bookcases. Don’t forget the advantages of faux bois, materials with a wood grain look. You often see it in flooring, and it can be just as effective in upholstery. Reclaimed wood pieces can also offer a natural and organic look, with the added bonus of being one-of-a-kind treasures for your home.

4. Plants

Small plants are always nice is tabletop planters and vases. Terrariums are fun, and a shot of greenery displayed in clear cylindrical vases is a creative touch either on a bookcase or wall shelf.

But nothing really invokes the outdoors like large plants in generous pots. Ficus are common and seldom a bad idea, but think about something completely different, such as cactus or yucca for your Southwest motif, or Norfolk pine for you forest theme. Consider philodendron or oversize coleus. For an idea your guests may not have seen before, try croton with its many-colored leaves or desert rose with its red blossoms and plump lower trunk. For a low-maintenance option place cattails or dried flowers in an urn, or choose from a wide variety of realistic looking and stylize artificial flowers and stems.

5. Natural Decor

Your natural decor might consist of objects you bought, treasures you found or ordinary household decor with a natural feel. There are as many possibilities as there are niches in your home.

• Use store bought or nature picked rocks, crystals, geodes, shells, polished tree burls, driftwood and twisted, weatherworn tree branches. Gather them in bowls or stack them on shelves. Use two or three types of found nature decor together.
• Use rocks and geodes as bookends.
• Hang curtains of natural fabric.
• Use lamps with natural shades and nature touches such as a tree trunk style base.
• In the kitchen, display your herbs in mason jars and other clear containers.
• Favor ceramic vases and bowls, especially bowls shaped like shells.
• Find natural looking wood frames for mirror and art.
• Select nature motifs in wall art.
• Use fringed throw blankets and throw pillows with a textured look.

6. Take a Walk on the Natural Side

Put your outdoor style where your feet are. Wood look or wood composite flooring provides the practicality of tile with a natural appearance. The woodsy look can be found on carpeting and rugs as well. Also, the basket weave look in a throw rug is an easy way to toss a bit of outdoors onto any section of your floor.

No matter the weather, every day can be a pleasant, meandering walk through your houseful of nature-inspired design.