It came to my attention this year that there's a whole world of patio furniture out there. I never had a reason to look into it for myself, never having had any outdoor space of my own to furnish (not counting the 20 square foot balcony in our last apartment.) Suddenly now that we need some, I realized it's in every store and catalog. I just never noticed it before!
I've shopped at certain very high-end vendors for clients in the past, but for my first foray into my own patio furniture, I wanted to keep it simple. Plus, Chicago winters aren't kind to the stuff and we don't have room to store a lot of cushions. So whatever we have has to either be replaceable or super-sturdy.
After checking out a whole slew of options from Crate and Barrel, Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn, Home Decorators, Frontgate, Bellacor, CB2, West Elm, and several others I can't even recall right now, I happened upon Grandin Road. They have a pretty tasteful selection overall, and I think the Paxton Collection, which we ended up with for our lounge seating, looks way pricier than it actually is.
We went with both the sofa and chair. The sofa comes with the seat cushion and three throw pillows (already a big advantage over other retailers who charge separately for the frame and the cushions/pillows) in a perfect pale maize color, and delivery is included in their pricing. The chair comes with the seat cushion and one throw pillow. It all comes via UPS and requires some simple assembly with a screwdriver.
I ordered it Monday. It got here today, which kind of caught me off-guard. I got the shipping confirmation email saying it had shipped yesterday a few minutes after it actually got here.
We also ordered a dining set (table and four chairs) from Home Decorators, which is affiliated with Home Depot. However, I later discovered a different set from Frontgate that I think I might get instead because it has a round table and would be easier to pull an additional chair up to (the set I originally ordered has a slightly higher than average table, so you couldn't use standard chairs with it. I guess some people think that a table being high makes it cooler somehow. Not sure why.)
Home Decorators only has like 5 locations nationwide, but one of them happens to be in the Home Depot in our neighborhood. They have a program that allows you to order something to be shipped to the store and only pay $15 shipping, rather than the approximately $145 freight and shipping it would have cost to ship directly to our house. It's a great deal if it works for you. I plan on going to the store to see the set in person before deciding whether to bring it home or return it and get the Frontgate set instead.
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