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Durable outdoor teak furniture to spruce up your patio

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Sometimes during the cool winter months when I can’t garden I spend time planning for the following growing season. I think about what plants might do better if I were to move them to another spot in the garden, or what plants I might purchase via mail order to plant in the spring. Do you make plans for your garden or backyard in the off season too?

When I’m not making plans for the growing season I sometimes try to think of other things that I can do or purchase for my backyard to make it all the more enjoyable. I mean, you can only work in the garden for so long right? You’ve got to sit back and relax and take in all that beauty at some point!

During the summer we often have friends drop by several times each week and we spend our time sitting in the backyard enjoying the view while we talk. Other times I have backyard BBQ’s and dinner parties.

We have a nice high glass patio table right now. I like it, but since we often have several people over for get togethers I find that the patio table is too small to accommodate our guests. The table is meant to sit four people, but we purchased two high stools so we can sit six. It’s a tight fit at times!

I’m seriously thinking about getting a larger patio table and perhaps some other patio furniture. I took a look at the outdoor patio furniture at BeFurnished.com and I really like their selection of teak outdoor furniture.

Teak is a fantastic wood to use for outdoor furniture because it’s so durable. It holds up well outdoors and I believe that the wood is resistant to pests like termites so it doesn’t get damaged the way other wood furniture does.

Another reason that I’ve thought of replacing my patio furniture with teak is because it’s so windy here in Toronto. We have a lot of wind here and we also have some major thunder storms. I always worry that the wind will blow our glass patio table over. Of course if that were to happen the glass insert would likely break and it would be quite expensive to replace. A teak table would be much less likely to be blown over in the wind.

BeFurnished.com is a US based company but they will ship anywhere in the world. That’s another reason why I like this company. Not only that, they offer free shipping within the continental US. Since I’m in Canada I always check an online stores shipping policies before I start browsing and adding items to my shopping cart. I’m always pleased when a company with products I like ships to Canada.

If you’ve been thinking about getting new patio furniture be sure to take a look at the selection at BeFurnished.com. They have teak sets, teak tables, teak chairs and benches, Adirondack Chairs, loungers and steamers, teak bars, cushions and accessories such as patio umbrellas. They also have a selection of outdoor furniture that they call “Deep Seating”. This is a selection of outdoor chairs, sofas, benches and even an ottoman that has extra deep seating for added comfort. There’s garden accessories too. Storage boxes, lazy susans and mini teak planters just to name a few.

I really like their selection of teak patio tables. They have teak extension table sets, round tables, benches sets and deep seating sets that look like outdoor living room furniture. I love it.

We have a fairly small patio so I can’t get really large patio furniture, but I do like the idea of getting an extension table. We keep it at it’s smaller non extended size most of the time, but we could make it larger to accommodate more guests when needed. I love that idea.

As most of my readers know my backyard is fairly small. It’s long and narrow and I have raised garden beds running along all of the sides of the yard, with one oval bed extending into the yard to divide the patio area, which is near the house, from the rest of the garden. The back half of the garden has a grass covered area where we sometimes pull out folding chairs when we have an outdoor gathering.

deepseating.jpg Looking at the deep seating loveseats and sofas at BeFurnished.com I thought how nice it might be to perhaps have a deep seating set for that area. I’ll have to get my husband to have a look at the outdoor furniture and see what he thinks.

I’m sure he’ll like it.

Visit BeFurnished.com to see their selection for yourself. I’d love to know if you like their teak outdoor patio furniture as much as I do.






Cut your energy bill this holiday season by switching to LED Holiday lights

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We had our first snow last week. That’s a little early for Toronto, especially to have snow that actually stayed on the ground for a few days.

I was taken by surprise by the early snow and it made me realize that we’d better get the Christmas lights out and start decorating the house before it snows again and makes it difficult to get the lights up.

Have you started decorating your home for the holidays yet?

We’ve pretty much switched over to LED Christmas lights. With the cost of energy these days it’s nice to know that LED lights are 90% more efficient than standard incandescent lights.

Did you know that this past Spring Toronto’s CN Tower, one of the tallest free standing structures in the world, got new lights? Yes, they equipped the tower with thousands of LED lights. Now at night the CN Tower is lite up with a variety of colors or pasterns. I think they change the colors and patterns daily. By patterns I mean that on Canada Day the tower might be light up with a flag totally made of LED lights or on the 4th of July there could be an American Flag showing. It’s beautiful. Plus, it doesn’t cost the city very much to light the tower. Only $1000 per month! That’s pretty good for a gigantic public building and tourist attraction.

So … if even cities are starting to use LED lights maybe you should too if you haven’t already made the switch.

A few other things that I like about using LED Holiday lights is the fact that the bulb is encased in a very hard plastic which makes them extremely durable. I’m sure you know how easy it is to break glass incandescent bulbs – especially the ones you use outdoors! LED lights are also long lasting. They’ll operate for 50,000 hours or more! That means years and years of use before you need to replace a string of lights.

As you know we try to be as green as possible with our gardening and the products we use around our home. I consider LED lights a green product because they are energy efficient and also because they last so long.

How many of you already use LED Holiday lights?

Cork flooring – beautiful and an eco-friendly choice for your home

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Are you thinking about replacing the flooring in your home? Perhaps tearing out your wall to wall carpeting and putting down a beautiful wooden floor?

That certainly seems to be the trend these days. I can even say that my own home has no carpeted floors. We tore them out when we first moved in because we both have allergies to dust mites, cats and dogs and the former home owners had had a cat. We were also lucky enough to discover that the flooring beneath the carpeting was in fairly good shape and only needed a little bit of work in order to regain it’s former beauty.

If we’d found that we had to replace the current flooring we might have chosen to go with cork. I’ve actually thought of replacing the not so nice looking laminated fake wood flooring that’s in our kitchen with cork flooring.

Have you ever thought of using cork flooring? It’s durable and comes in many different styles and colors from natural honey tones to red, green, chocolate, black and many other shades. Have a look at three different types I’ve selected to show you:

bamboo-natural_hb.jpg stone-cream_hb.jpg mediterranean.jpg

The first image is a natural bamboo style cork flooring, while the second cork flooring image is called Stone Cream (both by Valencia) and it almost looks like marble doesn’t it? The last image is called Mediterranean (by DaVinci) and it has a rich red tone to it.

You could easily purchase a style and color of Cork Flooring to suit any room in your home.

As someone who tries to live green the idea of using an easily renewable product such as cork flooring in my home is appealing.

When cork is collected for use in the creation of flooring and other products no trees are cut down. No. Instead, the bark is peeled from parts of the tree without harming the tree at all. New bark grows back within nine to ten years and is ready to be harvested once again.

See how environmentally friendly cork flooring really is? No trees are cut down or harmed at all. The fact that the trees remain in place and standing likely means that the delicate eco-systems that live in an around the trees probably have very little disruption.

Floormall.com carries several cork flooring lines made by some of the top manufactures in the business. Valencia, Da Vinci, Natural Cork, Wicanders, and APC cork floors are featured cork flooring manufacturers at the Floormall.com. I believe the majority of the cork flooring styles sold at the Floormall.com website are glue-less joint systems, which means they should be easy to install in your home.

If cork flooring sounds like it might be a great choice for your home visit the floormall.com. You can talk to a live service representative 7 days a week/ 24 hours a day if you have questions.

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