Choosing Patio Dining Sets

Imagine this You’re hungry. You’ve got your food, your cold drink, and the weather’s beautiful, so you want to eat outside. Having no furniture outside, you sit on the ground. Your white pants get dirty, and you just sat in a nest of biting ants. No doubt you can see the value of sitting on something more civilized. That’s where patio dining sets come in.

The Advantages of Patio Dining Sets Made of Wood are numerous. Wood’s prevalence as a building material owes to its strength, but also its attractiveness. It is also a great material for making outdoor furniture. Forget those crumbling wicker chairs at granny’s house, or the old weathered pine patio tables at highway rest stops. Good hardwoods not only look fantastic they endure all kinds of weather and keep looking great for years.

There are many excellent, beautiful hardwoods that can make an excellent building material. Forget pine, oak or natural wicker, for outdoor furniture, they won’t stand up to the weather and the sun. Teak, eucalyptus or cedar will.

Teak is the jewel in the crown of outdoor furniture woods. It is extremely durable. So durable, in fact, that it was the shipbuilding material of choice in the days of the clipper ships. Teak patio tables can outlive their owners-teak lasts up to one hundred years. It weathers from a warm orangey medium brown to a rich silvery gray.

Eucalyptus or cedar may last nearly as long as teak when sealed with an acrylic sealant, but cost considerably less, with prices starting at $325 and going up to around $1,000 for eucalyptus. Cedar is slightly cheaper and can withstand the weather for about 20 years with proper annual maintenance. How the wooden outdoor furniture is put together also matters, proper mortise and tenon joints or dovetail joints outlast cheap stables and glue.

Patio Dining Sets Made of Metal are an Attractive Alternative. Metal outdoor furniture is typically made of either aluminum or wrought iron. Wrought iron can be pricey, costing anywhere from about $600 to about $2,300 It offers lots of style options for your patio dining set, from modern to old-fashioned Italian villa.

Metal outdoor furniture’s two best construction materials are aluminum and wrought iron. They do not hammer wrought iron into shape over a fire any more, it’s cast in molds. It’s still called wrought iron because “molded iron” sounds rather prosaic. It’s not cheap, starting at about $600 to going to about $2,300, but at least you have a lot of options when it comes to styles of patio dining sets from the sleekly modern to old-school Italian villa filigree.

Plastic Patio Dining Sets Present an Affordable Solution Plastic outdoor furniture is the least expensive. Patio Dining sets can start as low as 50 dollars. It may not be as pretty s wood or metal but the price is right and plastic patio dining sets hold up regardless of weather.

Aluminum patio dining sets are no more expensive than wrought iron, but are entirely rust resistant. Even better, aluminum patio dining sets are so light that they’re easy to carry. They can look as intricate as wrought iron or austere and modern. Plastic outdoor furniture is by far the most affordable option, starting at only around fifty bucks for a patio set. While its looks won’t eclipse wood or metal patio dining sets generally, it’s inexpensive and rugged. Plastic outdoor furniture withstands all sorts of weather conditions, including the wettest, the hottest and the coldest.

Given the vast array of options available, there is almost certainly a patio set out there somewhere that is right for you.