New Patio Furniture

Last year we made a patio in our back yard. It seems like this is an ever evolving project. When we first put a door in our dining room I thought we would eventually build a deck. It seemed so obvious since the door is about 2-3 feet off the ground. The builder put in a temporary stair case and having that made me realize I liked the flow of having the place we sit being even with the ground. So we built a patio. When I say we I mean Jay, the kids and me. It was pretty cool to do it ourselves. The satisfaction of doing it all ourselves was almost worth all the time it took to do it, almost. So we spent all this money and time building this great patio, but our outdoor furniture was in bad shape. Really bad shape as in two of the chairs were completely broken and it all looks bad. So one of the suggestions we gave for Christmas gifts was patio furniture. I didn't really expect that anyone would choose that one, but my parents did. They told us to pick out a set. So I looked at tons of sets online. I found one I liked and showed it to Jay. He liked it too. It was a traditional dining table and 6 chair set. I liked it a lot. Then something gave me pause and I totally changed my mind. I decided I wanted a different feel for our patio. I want it to be relaxed. A place to hang out and not centered around eating. We do eat out there some times, but we spend so much time out there not eating I thought I would like a lower coffee type table that offered a place to set food down, but didn't become the center piece for the whole patio. We went to Home Depot and I fell in love with this set. I think it works very well with the gray patio and it so comfortable. We are going to need to get furniture covers, but I can handle that. Next is the pergola...or canvas gazebo...or some other shade offering device I have yet to discover. This is fun:-)