Our New Patio Set

Over the past couple weeks, Craigslist has been so kind to me.  Humor me and get excited with me, won't you?

I've been scouring Craigslist for a teak patio set for a while now.  (Did you know that when properly cared for, teak is said to last for generations?  Amazing!) The wrought iron set we had was decent enough, but it only sat four, which made it difficult to host friends and eat outside.  We were always wishing for more space and seating.

Definitely not my house, but note the beautiful teak furniture!

I have an alert set up through the Craigslist app (highly recommend, btw), so I am ready to pounce at a moment's notice when a post containing one of my keywords is found (in this case, "teak").  Can you imagine my horror when I inquired about a post literally six minutes after it went live, only to learn it was no longer available?  Apparently, I was not the only one in hot pursuit of some teak.  Not one to be easily deterred, this setback only intensified my drive, and a week or so later, a set was posted for sale for super cheap.  The icing on the cake?  It was located about 8 minutes from my house!

I'll leave out all the details of how obsessive and crazy I behaved while I waited to hear back from the sellers.  Here I am rolling back up to my house with my new teak set in tow.  Holler at my sweet neighbors who loaned me their van and trailer!!!

I love love love love love it!  It even has a hidden leaf that extends the table to provide for more seating.

grainy photo taken without enough light…

I've started cleaning it, and it's amazing what a little elbow grease will do!  I love the gray look of teak as it ages, but there was quite a bit of dirt that had to go.  Check out what a difference it made:

Our new patio set has given me much-needed motivation to address the rest of our back, so hopefully some improvements will not be too far off in the future.  And while I'm not going to show you just how rough the rest of our "yard" is, I will share some pictures of some gorgeous outdoor spaces I've recently pinned.  Our back yard looks about like the opposite of these images, just in case you were wondering.

all images and their sources can be found under the "Patio & Garden" board on my Pinterest page.  

Little Patio Peeks

Our patio still has a long way to go, and to be honest, I feel like I'm kind of losing steam (what with our move in about two months!)  I did plant some flowers, and it's pretty amazing what a difference a little green and some color can make.

I snapped these pics a couple days after I planted them and they've already grown considerably since then.  Fortunately, one of my children's favorite things to do is use our hose to water any and every possible thing in the yard, so my plants are receiving no shortage of water!

I have to confess that we still don't have an outdoor dining table.  It's been hard to pull the trigger on something since we don't know how the patio space at our next house will be configured.  I'm inclined to go pick up a card table and cover it in a pretty tablecloth just so we have somewhere to sit and eat!  We've been having some amazing weather for June, and it's such a shame to miss out on eating outside :(

Here are a couple pieces of outdoor furniture that are on my radar...

Source: worldmarket.com via Anne on Pinterest

How pretty would this table be surrounded by these chairs?

Source: worldmarket.com via Anne on Pinterest

And I can't imagine a space where a couple strings of these lights wouldn't be such a fun touch!

Source: target.com via Anne on Pinterest

I also really love teak furniture, so if anyone knows of a good, reasonably priced source, I'm all ears! (I heard that Costco once sold it, but it doesn't look like they carry it currently)

Source: southernliving.com via Anne on Pinterest

And if space allows, a nice grouping of chairs around a fire pit sounds just about right.

Source: worldmarket.com via Anne on Pinterest