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!