Eco-Friendly patio furniture on a budget?

March 30, 2006 6:26 PM

In search of eco-friendly patio furniture. We'd like to get a nice table and four chairs for the pending badass wooden deck in the backyard. Budget would be somewhere in the vicinity of $150-$250. Are we delusional?
posted by Ufez Jones to home & garden (13 answers total)

Don't skimp on patio furniture. Cheap stuff is really, really bad.

May I suggest Homecrest? Great stuff, made in my hometown of Wadena, MN...
posted by unixrat at 6:33 PM on March 30, 2006

for a set? proabably so, poke around froogle and you'll see most sets are above that price, eco stuff is usualy more pricy than evil corp stuff too
posted by edgeways at 6:34 PM on March 30, 2006

For the eco-friendly thing, I'd recommend searching for bamboo furniture. It doesnt have to be the Gilligan's Island lashed together or wicker look. They can form the bamboo into wooden planks, and achieve any traditional look. Its the price Im wondering about though.
posted by ernie at 6:37 PM on March 30, 2006

I'm too lazy to go look for you but an eco-friendly patio furniture company was mentioned on apartmenttherapy.com in the past week.
posted by dobbs at 7:09 PM on March 30, 2006

Costco cast iron. 5 pieces'll run about $100, and you'll still be using it in 2016.
posted by carterk at 8:10 PM on March 30, 2006

Oops, that's *wrought* iron...
posted by carterk at 8:10 PM on March 30, 2006

Used is eco-friendly. People move. Look in the classifieds.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:20 PM on March 30, 2006

A lot of Indonesian teak is plantation grown, making it eco-friendly in my book. I don't think you can get it in that price range though.
posted by BinGregory at 8:47 PM on March 30, 2006

A quick link on Indonesian teak plantations:

Although it is not devoid of silvicultural and management difficulties, it may be fairly said that it is a well-known timber species, relatively benign and successful in plantation environments in the tropics.
posted by BinGregory at 8:51 PM on March 30, 2006

Eco-friendly: a difficult thing to measure. In your neck of the woods, the most eco-friendly thing might be furniture made locallly from local woods. "Tulsa, Waco, Tulsa, Dallas"… I'm not very familiar with the region (but have a sense that forests are few and far between) but would start by guessing pecan, cottonwood or mesquite. Mesquite, if I recall correctly, will last a very long time exposed to weather and insects but most wooden items will last your entire lifetime if cared for properly. (They can also be effectively repaired.) The real beauty of something from wood is that even in its first form after "tree", it can be remade into multiple useful things until finally being burnt (another use of its original energy) and then spread around the feet of your raspberries.

To answer the question though: $250 might get you near the price of one very simple chair -- think adirondack in terms of ease of construction -- but I doubt it. Would it be a valuable pursuit? Yes.
posted by Dick Paris at 9:57 PM on March 30, 2006

This set of two armchairs, a bench and a table costs §140 at IKEA, and is made of solid acacia wood, "not from intact natural forests".

More patio chairs and tables from IKEA.
posted by iviken at 3:29 AM on March 31, 2006

You might want to wait until fall to purchase. The outdoor-type stores put their summer stuff on clearance then to make way for Christmas trees and the like.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 6:32 AM on March 31, 2006

The bamboo flooring scraps from my home reno project have all gained an unsightly and unique black mold, having been left outside for about six months.

I've my doubts about bamboo outdoor furniture. I rather suspect it's particularly susceptible to one of our common North American moulds.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:05 AM on March 31, 2006