Girl from rural America ftw 
Our fire pit is also industrial steel, made to rust gracefully.
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With a small hole drilled in the bottom for drainage. It should last decades.
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Here are 2 other tank ends we’re using as planters. The steel gets hot in the summer so we only use them for succulents.
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DH finally agreed that our landscaper needs to mulch our slope (and replace any landscape cloth that needs to be done). Before today, he claimed he was going to do it. I think him cutting apart the huge tree that fell in our side yard might have made him change his mind.
Next up…making him think he thought of getting the deck power washed!
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I finally took some pix of our new deck furniture. Assembling it was a b!t*h. It looks very plain right now but I’m going to get some colorful toss pillows from Home Goods in the next day or so to make it look fancy!
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I mentioned we ordered a new front porch bench a couple weeks ago. Got it put together just before Easter - I like it!
I wanted a nice looking “just the right shape” pot next to it. Something 20ish inch’s tall, rounded shape, stone to gray color.
I’ve been looking online and looked at a couple stores. Today I went to At Home- a store I only go to for summer outside things like occasional pots, outdoor pillows or furniture cushions.
Plant pots are OUTRAGEOUS. I often default to Home Goods but I had something pretty specific in mind. Shoot, a plastic (resin?) pot was like $70 - and didn’t even have drainage holes in the bottom! I ended up paying over $100 bit just getting one (I had considered two) and it’s ceramic, cold tolerant and exactly what I wanted. This thing better last!!
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I think it looks terrific! And once your flower boxes are blooming, it’s going to be even more terrific. I can’t imagine assembling those pieces! Well done!!
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I know what you mean! We shelled out a small fortune for our planters. Had some luck with Costco but snoozed and lost out on the ones we liked. Then our friends asked me if I wanted a bunch of planters… they bought a house where the deck was staged with beautiful flower pots but they don’t want the care and maintenance so emptied them all!
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Looks awesome and so inviting! Five stars out of four.
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I’ve def bought a few Costco planters. But for this one I wanted to be particular about shape and color and our Costco lately just has dark colored ones or blue ones right now. I didn’t check if there were any online.
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Random question - do people generally cover their outdoor (patio dining if it matters) furniture during the season and/or during the winter? Ours is aluminum with the fake “polywood” kind of stuff.
We have never covered our furniture, but we do take the cushions off and put them where they won’t get wet. We received a cover with our current furniture. When we were biking today, I noticed multiple houses with their outdoor furniture covered. That may be because it’s really probably still “pre-season” for outdoor furniture, but it made me wonder.
We bring in the cushions to the garage over the winter but leave them out the rest of the time. They are made of marine fabric so are meant to weather the elements and they dry quickly.
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My outdoor furniture is on a covered front porch. I bring the cushions in during the off-season and have covers that I put over the furniture. This is especially important for me right now b/c yellow pollen is all over everything! While I’d love to use my furniture right now on nice days, I wait until the yellow pollen is all finished falling.
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We are in the camp of only putting away any cushions or umbrellas of patio furniture during the winter. We do put away our lounge chairs and a wicker type bench we have.
Never cover anything spring through fall. We used it daily, day in and day out and covers would be a hassle.
Our deck is covered, so we keep cushions on the chairs year round. Because we have been known to use the firetable even in winter!
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At home: covers on all the deck furniture and fire table. The cushions on the chairs stay under waterproof covers all year. It’s all old enough that it really doesn’t matter.
At our second home: cushions are all inside during the off season. When it warms up, the chaises & cushions are under waterproof covers. The deck furniture cushions go into a poly storage thing each night and the chairs, dining table, and fire table under the deck cover stay out for the summer with waterproof covers on all but the dining table…just in case.
If we get new furniture for the deck at home this year, we’ll get a poly storage box for the cushions.
We use the fire all year round
We have loungers and patio umbrellas. We put the umbrellas in the attic over the winter since we won’t be using them. We use covers on the loungers year-round. During the winter keeps the water off, during the summer prevents fading and the fabric being destroyed by the UV. In the end maybe it’s a wash in cost, the covers only last about 3 years and the cushions aren’t that expensive, but I do like they don’t have bird droppings and other debris on them when we use them.
We power wash and then bring all our outdoor furniture and decorative accessories into our house/cabin before we leave the one for the other. We leave nothing at all outside either place. Before we bought the cabin, we put all our (AZ) outdoor furniture into the casita to protect it from the summer heat bringing it out again to enjoy in the “winter.”
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We bring our teak furniture under cover for the winter.
When we grew up, the patio furniture stayed out in the patio in the sun year round, uncovered. Decades later, it’s still kept that way (niece owns home now). The furniture seems to be in pretty good shape for the decades of UV & sun it’s had. It gets sun, salt from nearby ocean and lots of heat but no snow. Haha! The patio is covered but the sun still beats down on it.
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