Patio Furniture: Round 1

So we finally scored some inexpensive patio furniture this past weekend from Home Depot and Home Goods.  We looked at Lowe's, HD, Wal-Mart, Sears, Ace Hardware, Target and a bunch of local seasonal stores over the last few weeks and ended up going with old faithful....the Depot!  Thanks to everyone for their suggestions on patio furniture though.  It's always helpful to hear personal reviews on things before you buy them!  We definitely checked out EVERYTHING imaginable, but at the end of the day, we needed a certain size/shape to fit properly on the deck so a wrought iron patio set from HD was the answer.  There were a lot of great rectangular options at all of the stores listed above, but none of them would really fit well on our deck....BOO!  But in the end, we are REALLY happy with the set we got. 

Check her out on the HD website and on my deck:

Nothing too fancy, but that's exactly what we were aiming for.  We opted for 4 chairs initially (since that was what fit well in our car) but I think we might head back over to pick up 2 more for additional seating when we have a party.  And since these chairs are stackable, we can just hide them away in the corner until we need them (or even in the garage)! 

The other great thing about this set is the price.  The table was $89.98 and the chairs were $29.98 each....for a grand total of $209.90.  And on top of that, my brother recently moved, so he was nice enough to let me use his 10% off coupon that he got in the mail.  YAY!  We walked out of there with an entire patio set for only $188.91!!  Unfortunately we still need to get an umbrella and umbrella stand, but I'm pretty happy with the cost so far.  If anyone has suggestions for that purchase, I am all ears!  I have looked everyone and have been hesitant to pull the trigger on anything for fear that it will only last us one season.  My parents gave us their old one to use last summer when the guys were still working on the deck in the heat all day, but unfortunately it got swept away one day in a storm and ripped in a few places.  We are worried that this might happen again depending on the type of umbrella we get (since we clearly get some strong wind gusts in our backyard) but it's hard to tell from online photos what style will hold up best.  So if you have an umbrella that you love, or you have a horror story or some words of wisdom to share, I would love to hear it!!

We are also looking for an umbrella that will match the cushions that I found at Home Goods.  They have light blue, dark blue, and a sage green in them.  They caught my eye as soon as I walked in the door.  I knew I couldn't leave without them!  I'd looked at a few other patterns and styles while we were hunting for the furniture, so I'd seen the prices and decided that $29.99/two cushions wasn't a bad deal!  Obviously I would have loved to get them on clearance, on craigslist, or for free, but after weeks of searching it just wasn't working out that way.  So another $60 later we have some nice comfy cushions (which I have to tell you are a MUST for me at this point in my pregnancy....I swear that I build forts whereever I go in the house in order to get comfortable....not sure if this is normal behavior, but it has gotten me through the last 6 months of this pregnancy pretty well). 

So I'm thinking of going with either a sage green or light blue for the umbrella.....what do you think?  Oh, and another concern I have with the umbrella is durability.  If you don't go with the sunbrella fabric, will it fade too easily and look terrible after one season?  I decided to go non-sunbrella for the cushions, but I also plan to keep them in a box on the deck when we aren't using them so they won't be constantly exposed to the sun.  Any thoughts on that would be greatly appreciated as well!  We are closing in here on the deck project, but I'll keep you posted (literally) on any other developments along the way!  Stay tuned!

To Stain or Not To Stain....

Ever since we completed our deck in November (read more about that here), we have been debating whether to stain it or seal it.  At first, I was in the "seal" camp and B was in the "stain" camp.  My opinion was mostly based on the fact that I'd heard/read that sealing it would last longer than stain (AKA less work for us down the road).  But after doing more research and reading up on consumer reports, I found that if you use a good brand, let it dry properly and maintain it each year with a light coat, then stain is just as easy as sealer.  PLUS, in my opinion anyway, stain looks so much better than a simple sealer coat....especially on pressure-treated wood.  If we had done mahogany or cherry, then we would probably lean more towards sealer to capture the beauty of the wood, but PT is just not a beautiful wood.

So......we stained it this past weekend!!!!  YAY!  And when I say "we" I mean B and my dad.  I ran back and forth to the store to pick up the paint (and back and forth to pick up more....and so on)....but I didn't really participate in the paint/stain part of the project.  I'm not going to lie to you, it took them most of the weekend to do it all, but it looks great so I think it was well worth it!!  And I can say that because my back isn't still aching because of it! 

Before we went out to buy the stain though, we talked about what we wanted it to look like.  We are planning to paint the trim of our house white this summer (or next....let's be realistic), so we thought that it would be nice to reflect that on the deck as well.  So, we ultimately decided to go with solid white balusters and railings and a deep reddish brown semi-transparent stain for the floor.  The choice of the floor color came from the wood floors in our house.  Since the deck is really an extension of the kitchen, we thought it would be best to keep the wood colors consistent.  Here are some inspiration photos that caught our eye during the planning process:

 
Then, as usual, we shopped around a little for the best prices on some of the highest-rated brands (I read a lot of good reviews on Cabot and Sherwin Williams Deckscapes so we focused on those two).  Lowes carries Cabot so we went there first.  The stain was about $33/gallon for semi-transparent stain and $27/gallon for solid white stain (we would need about 3 gallons of each for the project, so we would be looking at about $180 total).  We grabbed them (Cordova Brown for the floor and White for the railings) before heading to Sherwin Williams (since they are pre-mixed colors they are fully returnable).  I fully assumed that Sherwin Williams would be more expensive, so I was banking on keeping the Cabot anyway.  But when we got to Sherwin Williams we found out that they were having a 40% off sale for the weekend on ALL paints and stains, including Deckscapes.  WOOHOO!  Both the solid color stain and the semi-transparent stain were regularly $37/gallon, but with the discount they were only $22/gallon!!  We scooped them up as fast as we could and returned the Cabot ones on the way back home!  AMAZING DEAL!!  So all in, the total was $132......we saved $48!!  It is still a lot of money for stain, but I love it when I can save a little here and there!  It makes it all worthwhile.

For the Sherwin Williams Deckscapes brand, they are only available in custom-mixed colors, so they are non-returnable, but since I knew this was the best deal around I didn't mind snatching up a few gallons.  I chose Riverwood for the semi-transparent color on the flooring and Extra White for the solid color on the railings.  I walked away from the store with only 2 gallons of each (since I wasn't sure how far it would get us and didn't want to waste a gallon if we didn't need it.  Turns out, we ended up needing 3 gallons of each, but since the store isn't far from the house, I didn't mind running back out for it later in the day (especially since I wasn't the one doing the back-breaking work)!!!  The store manager recommended 3 gallons of each to me when I told him that we had about 340 sq ft of deck, but I didn't listen.  Next time, I will trust that he probably knows a little more about this than I do!  Haha!

So, this is what the deck looked like last week (on a rainy day, unfortunately):

And this is what it looks like now:



I am so happy with the way it turned out.  The guys had to do 2 full coats of the white (which is not fun when you are painting hundreds of thin balusters) and 2 full coats of the semi-transparent stain.  They used brushes for the railings and both a roller and a brush (to get in between the slats of wood) on the flooring. 

We considered doing the solid-colored stain for a few minutes, and then decided that we liked the idea of knots and grains showing through a little, so we opted for semi-transparent.  The guy at the Sherwin Williams store agreed that it would not only look nice, it would last a bit longer since you wouldn't notice the fading as much as you would with a solid stain.  We will still have to touch it up every year or every other year, but the big part is done so it will hopefully just be maintenance from now on.  I'll keep you posted on that next year though!

Next project on the list: PATIO FURNITURE!!!  I have been scouring craigslist for months and NADA, so I might end up with an inexpensive set from Home Depot or Lowe's.  I have seen BEAUTIFUL sets at Jordan's Furniture and some local seasonal stores, but a $2000 set is just not in the budget for us now.  My neighbor bought an $89 wrought iron table from HD last year and she said it has held up pretty well so far, so I might end up ultimately going that route.  I'll report back tomorrow though.  My dad is coming by to let me borrow his truck, so I'll let you know how it goes.

And as always, if anyone has recommendations for patio furniture that they've bought or that they have seen in catalogs, I'm all ears.  We aren't completely opposed to a teak or other wood material set, but I would RATHER not have to stain the deck and the furniture every year, so a composite or wrought iron would be my first choice.  Any thoughts or opinions on that are welcome too!!  Thanks guys!