All Outdoor Patio Furniture

As members of the outdoor living community, many of us have been eagerly looking forward to this Memorial Day for the unofficial beginning of the picnicking and outdoor living seasons.  And, while we are excited to use our picnic tables and outdoor dining sets, we certainly don’t want to lose sight of the importance of this historic day.

Memorial Day was first celebrated by communities remembering those lost in the American Civil War.  Starting as a small and emotional commemoration, the designated day of respect began to grow as Americans were lost and families were further affected by the following World Wars and other military engagements.

As we, the backyard enthusiasts, prepare for Memorial Day by planning backyard bashes and barbecues, I often take pause.  I wonder if scheduling a party on the day to remember fallen soldiers is the best approach to honor their memory.

But, then I remember that we are Americans.  Americans have always stood up for what is right, and protected the freedom of all.  What better way to celebrate their bravery than honoring the joyful life they fought to save?

So, as you pull out your outdoor furniture, put up those patio umbrellas, and gather your garden furniture into groups… remember how lucky you are to have the freedom to do so.  Take a look around at the friends, family, and neighbors enjoying your backyard, and appreciate their variety of cultures, ethnicities, religion, and beliefs.  In a world that is so often segregated, embrace the equality that the United States enjoys thanks to the brave men and women who have given their lives for our country.

A national moment of remembrance takes place at 3 pm, in whichever time zone you find yourself in.  If you’re enjoying a get-together with friends and family, ask everyone to take a bit of silence to give thanks for their freedom, their individuality, and the men and women that made the greatest sacrifice for you.

From all of us at the CedarStore family to every member of yours, enjoy your Memorial Day. Never forget how lucky you are to have it.

Tags: garden furniture, memorial day, outdoor dining sets, Outdoor Furniture, patio umbrellas, picnic tables

We’ve been to Tuscany, Japan, and Paris.  But, perhaps we should veer our travels to a more exotic climate.  Imagine an outdoor living space in your own backyard that likens itself to the Brazilian or Caribbean Tropics.  Drinking out of the ordinary cocktails and snacking on pineapple and guava, you’re sure to feel complete and total escape from the daily grind of temperate climates.  But, you might be thinking that you just live too far north to feel such equatorial repose.  You’re in luck!  I can show you how to recreate a tropical paradise no matter where you live.

Recreate Tropical Vegetation:  Even if you don’t live in a tropical climate, you can recreate a tropical feel by planting foliage in layers to mirror natural growth patterns.  Mix and match broad-leaf greens of different hues, shapes, and sizes with vines and ferns to create a holistically wild feel.  Then, add tropical-style flowers in vibrant colors.  The kind of flowers will depend on your gardening zone, location, and maintenance time… but hot pinks, purple orchids, fiery reds, and striking yellows will give the warm and close look of the rain forest.  Have fun, and don’t worry too much about everything going together perfectly.  You’re not paying homage to the manicured gardens of English royalty; you’re mirroring the untouched wilds of the rain forest!

Use Wicker Furniture with Teak and Eucalyptus Accents: Allow your outdoor furniture to mirror your tropical garden with inspired furnishings.  The deep and natural coloring of wicker patio furniture is a perfect choice, and the softness creates the rustic ideal of a hidden retreat.  Teak, a material harvested in the rain forest, is also a wonderful pick; whether you accent with a Teak side table, Teak garden bench, or even teak chaise lounges, the durable hardwood will bring out a tropical feel.  Lastly, for an even more exotic look, try FSC Certified Eucalyptus from Brazil.  It has an organically, completely authentic, tropical sense with hints of deep red in the tight-grained wood.  Again, don’t let yourself have a moment of anxiety over some kind of exact ratio of materials.  Use whichever material you like the best, and mix and match it to your liking!  An exotic approach means a relaxed approach, so let your more experimental design instincts run wild!

Having outdoor furniture that reflects the rest of the vegetation will bring your entire outdoor living space together.  Whatever material you use, it’s also very important that your patio furniture reflects your personality and desired use.  Chaise lounges and garden benches are perfect for families looking to lounge and socialize all afternoon; while picnic tables and outdoor dining sets are best for people hoping to eat most of their meals outside.  If you plan to do a lot of entertaining, a bar set or refreshment stand will offer both style and function. Of course, if you have enough space to allow it, you can have both a living area and a dining area for complete versatility!

Use Bright Colored Fabrics: While your garden furniture highlights dark, natural colors… you’ll want to bring out the vibrant shades of your tropical flowers with fabric accents.  Outdoor furniture cushions, patio umbrellas, table cloths, or outdoor pillows are all great ways to add lively hues to your decorating scheme.  Choosing solid colors in the same or similar shades to your most used tropical flowers will bring the whole space together.  Use stripes and patterns carefully, or even sparingly, to keep the more simple and rustic theme in tact.  The best place for busy patterns is on dishware or urns to reflect the rich and brightly decorated pottery often found in tropical climates.

Couple a Fire Ring with a Water Feature: Even if you live in the most temperate climate, you can give the steamy feeling of the rain forest by mixing fire and water. Of course, you can choose to install a swimming pool for the height of luxury and function, or have a small garden or koi pond put in.  But more than having a pond or pool, moving water, like a water fall, is really ideal for a tropical garden.  Whether you have a fountain, or water gently flowing over rocks, the sounds of water through out the garden will be the absolute best for exotic gardens.

Adding a fire pit or fire ring will create wonderful contrast.  Like striking camps set up in the rain forest, a place for a true burning fire will make the entire area seem authentic while creating an inviting appeal.  Plus, having both fire and water work together will lend the steamy appeal without all the humidity!

Create a Hidden Retreat:  For the ultimate in tropical outdoor spaces, create a hidden retreat.  Accessible by a winding garden path away from the rest of the house, the sky and your imagination are the only limits to creating a unique area.  For people interested in large-scale entertainment, a tiki bar gazebo can be a wonderfully conversational garden structure that will have guests flocking.  But, if private repose is your prerogative, a spa shelter for a hot tub will certainly serve you like a fresh hot water spring!  A Red Cedar Cabana or Gazebo also make perfect hide-aways.  Decorated with the same wicker, teak, and eucalyptus outdoor furniture, you can also install an exotic outdoor ceiling fan with palm or tropical leaf blades.  Try setting it up with a small desk with typewriter and leather bound notebooks to give the appearance of an explorer’s outpost.  Or, use chaise lounges and a well placed hammock to make a tropical retreat fit for royalty.  After all, you will be the King or Queen of your retreat!

Traveling and vacationing are wonderful pastimes, but creating brilliant outdoor living spaces with the design and luxury of far away retreats allows both your family and your friends to escape at any time, all year long.  A tropical outdoor living space will allow you to feel like you’ve flown to a resort in the Bahamas at a moment’s notice.  Integrating large-leaf foliage with bright colored flowers along side natural wicker, teak, and eucalyptus furnishings accented with bright, solid fabrics will set a calming and interesting color scheme.  Mixing fire and water features will give the appearance of steamy climates without the humidity, while creating a hidden retreat can be both a hub for entertaining and an escape for true repose!  Experience the versatility of a tropical outdoor living space!

Tags: bar set, cabana, fire pit, fire ring, garden benches, garden furniture, garden structure, Gazebos, hammock, outdoor dining sets, Outdoor Furniture, outdoor furniture cushions, patio furniture, patio umbrellas, picnic tables, refreshment stand, spa shelter, teak chaise lounges, teak garden bench, teak side table, tiki bar gazebo, wicker patio furniture

Most people are familiar with using Treated Pine, Red Cedar, Teak, and even Oak for outdoor furniture.  If you’re looking for more information on long-loved patio furniture materials that have stood the test of time, check our Shirley Bovshow’s Eden Makers Blog for tips and advice!

While traditional and time honored garden furniture materials will always be appropriate, beautiful, and well-respected, many designers are starting to use some unlikely candidates to craft their outdoor pieces. Today, I have five reasons to start looking at Eucalyptus Wood for your outdoor furniture!

Growing Eucalyptus Helps the Earth: Unlike a lot of vegetation, an abundance of Eucalyptus trees will offer a helping hand to many surrounding species.  We all know that Koalas love their sweet leaves, but the trees’ rich flowers also provide a large source of food to pollinators such as insects, birds, and bats.  Further, Eucalyptus trees draw a tremendous amount of water from the soil in order to grow, so planting them in places where architecture or human interference has caused damage will lower the water table and reduce soil salination.  This is also a sparkling use of the earth’s water as the tree naturally cleans it of toxins to both release it back into the water cycle and create valuable oxygen.

Growing Eucalyptus Helps People: Eucalyptus trees have become economically important to many groups of people by becoming a cash crop in poor area of Africa, The Andes, and parts of South America.  Not only does this cultivation bring prosperity to poorer communities, it also helps to maintain their health.  The process of transpiration that causes Eucalyptus trees to use an incredible amount of water in their growth has caused many areas to plant Eucalyptus in overgrown swamps.  Swamps that have developed over too large of a region create dangerous and outsized areas for mosquito larvae to foster.  Using Eucalyptus trees to naturally downsize these overgrown swamps significantly reduces outbreaks of malaria.

Eucalyptus is a Sustainable Product: Eucalyptus is incredibly sustainable.  First of all, the tree grows exceptionally fast and can be chopped at the root to grow back again.  Because of its quick growing cycle and ability to re-grow from the roots, many wood production companies use plantation grown and carefully managed Eucalyptus trees instead of logging in native and valuable rain forests.  And, this can continue for many decades, as well-managed plantations produce soil that can sustain endless replanting.  Further, we can use more than just the Eucalyptus wood.  Eucalyptus oil can be steam distilled for sustainable, natural cleaning and deodorizing products, and small quantities can have healing effects in cough drops and decongestants.  The oil even has natural insect repelling properties for commercial mosquito repellants. Eucalyptus nectar is used to make high-quality monofloral honey, and all other parts are employed to make sustainable and natural dyes for fabrics. A plant with several attributes that can be used across industries makes it valuable, efficient, and better for the earth.

Eucalyptus is Durable and Weather-Resistant: With naturally occurring oils that contain insect repelling properties, this wood is perfect for outdoor furniture.  When pre-treated and kiln dried, it is renowned for its excellent resistant to all variations of weather, insect attacks, and decay.  It’s not just the oil though; Eucalyptus hardwood has an incredibly tight gain with a very high density.  These attributes make the timber strong and resilient to all kinds of normally damaging outside factors.  While a weather-resistant and durable wood is good for any product, outdoor furniture benefits from these characteristics more than most.  Using Eucalyptus wood is not only helping the earth, animals, and people in developing countries… it’s helping you make sure you choose a material that is sure to last!

Eucalyptus is Gorgeous and Lustrous: If you checked out Shirley Bovshow’s Blog, you saw that Teak outdoor furniture is absolutely the most revered.  Teak is enormously breathtaking in beauty, and has a density and durability that makes buyers flock.  But, one of the reasons Teak wood boasts such a high price tag is the years and years it takes for the Teak tree to reach the maturity it needs to produce such a high-quality wood.  But, premium grade Eucalyptus has the same resilience and beauty of Teak, with a much faster growing process that drives the prices down.  With Eucalyptus, you can get a lovely natural luster in your wood that will last for decades—without breaking the bank!

Whew!  Now that you know more about Euclyptus than you probably ever imagined you would before reading, you know that when choosing your next outdoor furniture set… Eucalyptus hardwood is a great material not only for you and your family, but the world and its eco-system as well.

See you Outside!

Hazel.

Tags: Eucalyptus Wood, garden furniture, oak, Outdoor Furniture, patio furniture, red cedar, teak, treated pine

1. Feed the birds! This was mentioned before, but it’s worth bringing up again.  Many birds and small creatures are having an awfully hard time finding food in the snowy cold.  Put out birdfeeders and birdhouses full of seeds and birdfeed.  Without spending a lot of money, you can help a wide variety of creatures.  For our non-feathered friends, try putting out a piece of old plywood on the ground and spreading nuts, seeds, beans, oats, corn, or other wildlife friendly foods.  And don’t worry, your work won’t be completely selfless (though you can tell everyone how charitably kind you are), because you’ll get to enjoy a show of birds and other animals right in your own backyard! Note: Urban Gardeners Beware, birdfeeders will work great, but plywood left out with food might be a project best left to more rural dwellers.
2. Keep an eye on your bulbs! While weather changes that create one or two warm days can sometimes trick bulbs into thinking spring is on its way, we know that frigid weather is not finished yet! So, if you see your bulbs peeking out of the soil, cover them with a thick layer of mulch and compost to protect them from the snow and ice.  And remember, this is a great way to reuse the branches of your old Christmas tree!
3. Turn your soil! Now is the perfect time to turn your soil (assuming the ground is not frozen or sopping wet).  A rich loose soil is vital for ideal gardening.  To keep it rich and crumbly in the spring, remove any grasses or weeds from the area you are planning to garden and spread two or three inches of compost or other organic matter (old Christmas Tree branches?) on top of the soil.  Then, using a garden spade or fork, break up any heavy clods to keep the soil movable.  Good garden soil should have the perfect balance of air, water, and nutrients to support a strong system of roots.
4. Prepare to work! Now is a good time to start inventorying your tools.  Make a list of tools you want to buy or replace.  Willi Galloway outlines ten basic tools every gardener needs: a sturdy hand trowel, a stirrup hoe, a square blade spade with a D-shaped handle, bypass hand pruners, a garden fork, a leaf rake, a bow rake, a hand cultivator, a wheelbarrow or garden cart, and a hori hori knife, which is a serrated Japanese garden knife used for dividing plants, making furrows, and weeding.  In a few months, many garden supply stores will start jacking up prices.  But, if you start early and plan well—you won’t have to spend a lot of money to have the proper tools for your garden.
5. Prepare to Enjoy! So, you’ve helped the animals, you’ve protected your bulbs, you’ve turned your soil, and you’ve prepared your tools.  Now– help yourself.  It may seem like the warm weather will never come… but just as we have to work hard to prepare to… well… work hard, sometimes there are simply delightful tasks to prepare us to enjoy our gardens.  You envisioned the different vegetables and flowers you will grow in the “just right places” as you turned your soil, and you planned which plants will get the most use out of each tool.  But, have you taken time to arrange your patio furniture?  A garden can be more than just plants: add a garden bench, rocking chair, or porch swing for a small place to sit and enjoy your hard work quietly.  Consider a picnic table, outdoor dining set, or patio group if you’re hoping your whole family will come out and enjoy the beauty over the spring and summer months.  And, if you’re planning a garden so wonderful you could practically live in it… a gazebo, cabana, or pergola would be the perfect structure for your outdoor parties and afternoons to revolve around.  And, unlike jeans… garden structures and furniture are FUN to shop for!

See You Outside!

Hazel

Tags: birdfeeders, cabana, garden bench, garden furniture, garden structures, garden tools, gardening, gazebo, January, outdoor dining set, patio furniture, patio group, pergola, picnic table, porch swing, rocking chair, wheelbarrow

As we’ve discussed before, there is a huge trend toward bringing the indoors outside, and vice versa.  Some people accomplish this by enclosing their porches, patios, and gazebos, while others go to great lengths to turn their yards into outdoor living rooms.  In any case, because we are furnishing these spaces as elaborately as our indoor rooms, giving them their own special themes and schemes, we have to shop for them with the same considerations and concerns about style and color. 

If you’ve ever had a bad time trying to find indoor furniture, you may be anticipating shopping for outdoor furniture with great trepidation.  Perhaps that’s because you’re dreading the prospect of spending an entire day, or maybe even a whole weekend, running around from store to store, comparing prices, looking at swatches, and listening to sales pitches. 

Well, if that’s your worry, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find out that shopping for outdoor furniture can actually be fun; and you don’t even have to leave the house to do it.  The only place you need to go is to CedarStore.com, where you’ll find a colossal collection of outdoor, patio, porch, and garden furniture, in a wide range of styles, colors, and materials. 

If you’re looking for classic wood furniture, you’ll love our durable, hand-crafted cedar, pine, oak, cherry, and teak chairs, tables, garden benches, porch swings, gliders, lounges, and rocking chairs, available in designs to complement any décor, from the most rustic, to the most elegant.

If you prefer metal or synthetic furniture, we have an amazing assortment of attractive aluminum outdoor furniture, available in a rainbow of colors, that won’t rust, warp, or break, even if it’s exposed to the elements all year long.  There’s also a selection of gorgeous, maintenance-free polywood, synthetic wicker, and vinyl furniture that’s virtually indestructible.

We also have a variety of breath-taking dining sets, bar and bistro tables and chairs, picnic tables, accent tables, coffee tables, and ottomans, along with cushions and umbrellas, available in countless colors, patterns, and color combinations. 

Indeed, there are thousands of items to choose from, in every style, size, and color imaginable; but, if you don’t find anything you like, we will customize almost any piece for you.  Well, actually, although we do frequently build furniture to our customers’ specifications, it’s only because they have something extra-special in mind – not because of the previously stated reason.  Imagine!  People not finding anything they like on our site?  I’m SO sher!

Yours Outdoors, 

Kathy

Tags: garden furniture, Outdoor Furniture