When we were shopping around for apartments, one of our requirements was to have a ground floor level apartment. Although this may seem strange to some (for security purposes), it actually is a very good fit for our lifestyle. Our apartment is in a very safe and quiet neighbourhood… close to downtown but luckily not downtown by choice. A ground floor apartment meant more patio space… and the ability to move our camping gear, surfboards and snowboards in and out of the apartment through our back gate.

So, it’s rather sad that since March when we moved into the apartment, our beloved  patio has remained completely empty. Allan and I are gearing up slowly towards a hard date of finishing our place in mid-November, when we are throwing a big house warming party. Many of you… of course, will be invited

This past weekend, we finally saved up enough to furnish our outdoor patio. It’s surprising how expensive patio furniture really is — even on clearance at the end of the summer. Several similar patio sets ranged from $5,000 to $7,000 depending on where you purchased them from. I was sticker shocked, quite frankly. Even Craigslist didn’t have a good selection and wasn’t very cheap either. We checked out a few places on the North Shore including Ginger Jar (holy cow, expensive!)… and a few whole sale/direct places in East Vancouver… still quite expensive.

We ending up finding furniture at a great wholesaler in Richmond. The same patio furniture that was selling at Ginger Jar for $5,000 we got a great steal for both sets at $1200 including delivery and tax. Pretty stoked about that.

I love the Rattan look. It’s durable, waterproof and UV resistant and very solid. Aluminum frames as well so they won’t rust. The lounge set also stacks up into a space-saving tower completely interlocked. Really cool and handy for when winter comes!

We decided to go with a lounge set for hanging out, but we also wanted to add some height to the backyard and have a place to eat… so we also got a bar set with stools.

We’re quite happy with the set so far! So comfortable! I’m looking forward to getting all my planters back and lanterns, and really making the patio look exciting again. It looks a little bare now with just the furniture, but I think once we get it all set up properly it is going to look really nice!

In other news, I had a great weekend (sorry for the pics, my Nikon D90 is only half functional so these are all phone photos… boo):

We went to the auto wrecker to get some parts for the car. This is DEFINITELY where cars go to die. How sad.

We popped over to my parent’s place and checked out the homemade tomato sauce my mom was making from the tomatoes in the garden… delicious! Can’t wait to get my tomato planters back in my patio for next summer.

We also went out to dinner Kingyo on Denman with the family… sooooo good. Some of the best Japanese food I have ever had in Vancouver.

And of course, attended the 100 Monkeys concert as you can see from the post below.

All in all, a great weekend! What did you guys do this past weekend? How do you guys approach decorating your patio?