Things I love: at Grandin Road

I've received the catalog from Grandin Road for a few years now. I've never given it a whole lot of time or energy, just flipping through it now and then, but this year I noticed that it has a lot of outdoor furniture, the kind that seems like it would LAST.

I've been so frustrated with our outdoor furniture, which in the past has mostly been made of wood. A couple of years ago, I replaced our falling-apart wooden Adirondack chairs (literally ... a couple of them didn't make it out to the street in one piece for the garbage truck) with some really durable plastic ones from Lowe's. They were reasonably priced, and while they don't look as nice as wooden ones, they've certainly lasted longer. And -- bonus -- bird poop washes off of them MUCH more easily.

At the same time, I replaced our handmade gliding wood bench with two stationary wood benches because we were all tired of sitting down and getting splinters in the back of our thighs. We didn't get splinters for one Summer, but they're back. So much for THAT expense.

SO ANYWAY, that's why Grandin Road sort of popped up on my radar this month. Here are some things I would love to have, but which are too expensive to justify for outdoor furniture (and I have to link to them instead of showing pictures of them, because they only have .gif files and I can't .jpg them on this computer and therefore this might be the only Grandin Road post you ever get from me):

All-weather acrylic Bella stacking chairs ($249)

Greenwich collection (ottoman $299, slipper chair $399, corner chair $499)

Steel Retro collection (sofa glider $499, spring chair $199)

All-weather rockers ($199)

This is the type of furniture I'd like to be relaxing on today, except that it's pouring down rain, thundering and lightning here. Boo. I hope this day finds YOU able to enjoy the outdoors, and I wish you many splinter-less thighs this holiday weekend!