Okay, so maybe not the finest, but it’s fine enough for us! Our new patio furniture came in a week ago, along with my birthday present to Tim—a fire pit. So here is a side view of the back patio in all of its glory.
The seating set is from Martha Stewart’s collection at Home Decorators. The set is made from eucalyptus wood and comes with the cushions. Since the price of teak leaves a teak set out of the picture, this is about the next best option as far as wanting a wood set if you’re on a budget. The set only comes with 1 end table, but Tim decided we needed a second one. You can click on the pictures to enlarge for a better view.
Close up of the detail on the tables.
We actually had the same set last year, but cushions had a striped pattern rather than a solid color. Sadly, the wood didn’t quite hold up like it said it would [it’s suppose to be moisture resistant and long lasting], but after just 3 month the wood started splitting and completely lost its color. We had even put plastic glides on the bottom of each of the legs to make sure the wood wouldn’t sit directly on the concrete for when it did rain. We put the cushions and sometimes the actual furniture in the garage or shed when we knew it was going to rain to help the patio set stay as nice for as long as possible. Guess it wasn’t enough. After quite a bit of talking to the people at Home Depot [where last years set was purchased], we were able to return it for a full refund. It does come with a 1 yr warranty.
So this year, after a lot of searching and looking for new set, we decided to go back with this set. Call us crazy, but we’re determined to make this set last. Tim doesn’t like the whicker sets [I do] and neither one of us are fans of the aluminum or plastic sets. Tim was able to find a discount code that gave us 20% off the order [I believe HD is now running a sale on their outdoor sets, but wasn’t when we bought it]. So while the set is suppose to come pre-treated, we don’t trust that it actually is and will be applying teak, tung, or linseed oil to help protect the wood. We’ve already put the plastic glides under all of the legs, and bought a cover for the set. It’s been raining all week, so the set is tucked away until it’s nice enough for us to put the oil on it.
And for the fire pit! [The picture was taken pre-clean up of the big boxes that contained the patio set]
Tim really wanted a fire pit for the patio this year, so I said I would buy him one for his birthday [which was back in April]. We also did a lot of searching for the right fire pit as well. One with a ledge was preferred and we were leaning towards a square one. While the look of the tile ones are nice, those are normally individual pieces of tile and often time come loose or break away from the fire pit—so we knew the ledge had to be one solid piece. Bonus points for the fire pit coming with the mesh cover for the logs and a cover for the entire pit. Then Tim found this baby at Lowes 🙂 It’s from the Allen + Roth line.
The sides of the pit are aluminum [I believe] but the ledge is one solid piece of concrete. The box weighed 100 lbs—95% of that being the ledge. It has small pieces of tile and even some copper set into the concrete. I love the colors and the pattern. It even came with a fire poker, the screen, and a cover. For only $150 before tax, I thought it was a pretty good deal. Similar ones I’ve found were over $250.
And of course Nellie has to check out our new toys. Can you believe she is already 9 months?! So cute.
An after–clean up shot of the patio. Don’t know if you can see the string lights very well, but we hung up a couple strings going from the house to the shed and back to the other of the patio. It’s great mood light for entertaining people after dark. We picked those up from Target last year.
Tim also got this nice log stand from his dad for his birthday—it didn’t come with the dead plant, we just left it there to die over the winter. Oops. Before the wood was piled on the patio, but now it’s nicely stacked and out of our way.
So that’s the patio thus far. If the weather is nice tomorrow [it’s raining today] I’m going to get tulip bulbs planted for next spring and spread new mulch around the bushes in the front of the house, which is about the extent of my green thumb. Happy weekend 🙂
—m.