Outdoor Patio Seating Benches complete and brightly colored!

So now that it is sunny and Spring, I am happy to show off our newly covered and outdoor-ready patio benches.

(Note: After I wrote this post, I decided I liked things better setup like this:)

Until we get a chance to making our fire pit, the benches fit nicely on our patio. It's funny, when we bought the house, I didn't realize how big the patio really was. I kept imagining that we could only fit our patio table with its chairs, and that's it. I didn't realize I could fit that table set, PLUS 3 benches with their seats!

(Our patio table set, on the other side of the patio)

I think part of it is that we purchased our house in October, and moved in the day before Hurricane Sandy, so there was no opportunity to test out the outdoor furniture on the patio.
Basically we got 4 benches (3 large and 1 small) from my husband's work- they were originally indoor seating for their hallway area of a senior apartment complex. Our goal was to make the wood outdoor friendly and recover the seats to also be outdoor friendly.

We painted the wood with an outdoor polyurethane, so it all is outdoor friendly. Didn't really have to use much to cover them. We still have most of the can left!

I got the cloth (or tablecloths) from Family Dollar- the solid colored ones, and the striped blue I got from The Christmas Tree store. Total cost of fabric to recover 3 benches' seats (6 seats)- $22! I got 4 striped pillows from the Salvation Army, so all in all- full project was a great deal!  I got the tip to cover the seats with thick tablecloths (cheaper than outdoor fabric) somewhere on Pinterest, and overall I'm glad- it isn't perfect, but I dig it and it was perfect for our budget.

I was so happy how these cuties turned out. Right now we don't have them screwed down, until we figure out the best layout for them on the patio (benches and seat colors). The original setup started out like this:

But after some debate, I swapped it to this (with the green on the single seats with table in the middle on the opposite side of the deck:

Which setup do you like better?

There is one mini bench (only has one seat and one table part) but there was no room on the patio for it and we also weren't sure if we wanted to use it in the firepit setup either. If we decided to use it, that seat will be salmon pink, since we could only find one pink cloth (which I still am sad about- I wanted all the benches to be a solid pattern, but you deal with what you can find).
What a great spot to sit and have a beverage and relax. I spent the day that we finished them, sitting outside circle knitting with a hard cider. lol!

Later that day (this past weekend) we cleaned out our shed and found this cool yard game left by the previous owners (among other things they left). I played it a while ago at a friend's house, so we had purchased ourselves the inflatable version (because I thought it was a fun game), but didn't open it yet- since it wasn't summer when we purchased it. I'm so happy that we have the real game now!

We had so much junk that we trashed out of the stuffed shed (because we didn't have time to sort through it in the wake of a hurricane). I'm sure our poor trash guys hated us on trash day.

Overall, it was a beautiful weekend and I look forward to more beautiful days to enjoy our patio. Can't wait to get a real grill to do some barbecuing! Poor Wendy was jealous. We brought her out on the kitty leash, but she was too scared outside that she hid under one of the benches the whole time. She would meow at me through the door most of the time. awh...

Anyways, I'm happy they turned out cute. Which color seats are your favorite?

Have a great day all!

-M

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