As the season of warmer weather approaches, your mind is probably filled with nights of roasted marshmallows and chasing fireflies with the kids. Your outdoor plans during warm summer nights might fall more on the side of conversation with friends and burgers on the grill. Whatever your ideas for the warm season, you are probably thinking about the furniture outside of your house. If you’re starting from scratch or throwing out all of your old stuff, you are probably at a loss for what to next. Online furniture marketplaces such as Vast Market outdoor furniture can be a good place to start. Choosing outdoor furniture is easy, and there are a lot of ways that you spruce things up on your own whenever you want to update in the future.

Feet and Yards

Think about the space that this furniture will go into and who will be using it. Your yard could have grass, dirt, gravel, or stones on the ground and there is furniture for every instance.

· If you have children, you may want to consider something that can hold up to a little abuse and that also won’t hurt so badly if they happen to fall down or run into something.

· If you tend to bring your furniture inside a lot due to weather concerns or because you don’t like it’s constant exposure to the elements, then you’ll want something more lightweight that you can move around easily.

· A small yard doesn’t necessarily mean small furniture. It could mean less furniture. Survey your space and consider every possibility.

· A lot of rain in your area doesn’t mean that you can’t have outdoor furniture. You simply have to look for something that can hold up to the rain and that includes an umbrella or covering.

· Gardening might be your favorite past time. You can include your patio furniture in that function and make it work for you. This works especially well in small spaces.

· Having a lot of children around that play outside or bring their friends over can get messy. An outdoor garbage can fixes that problem. It looks better than a plastic bag attached to the doorknob and has a lot more functionality.

· Placement is crucial. You don’t want people to have to squeeze between the table and the grill just so that they can get back to their seat. Create clear walkways between furniture.

· Colors and styles aren’t as important with outdoor furniture as with your indoor furniture. Due to constant exposure to the elements, colors fade faster and stylish furniture may not be able to withstand staying outside all of the time.

· Consider the area that you live in. Does your outdoor furniture need to be secured? Although you’d like to trust all of your neighbors, you may not be able to and having to secure your furniture so that it doesn’t go missing could be something that you have to think about. There’s also the weather. Areas of high wind, or hurricane and tornado zones are not ideal for lightweight furniture unless you plan to bring it inside every time the weather takes a turn.

Tables, Chairs, and Other Such Things

Don’t worry about how many people you may have over your house at any given time or if there’s enough room on your table to fit all of the food as it comes off the grill. This is your outdoor seating. It’s extra. You still have your kitchen inside or the grass to sit on. When deciding on patio furniture, you should pay the most attention to the people that live in the house, not the people that might be your guests in the future. You may want to consider pool parties and backyard barbeques but those kinds of events most likely won’t happen every day. You and the other people that live in your house will be there every day, and when it’s warm out they will most likely use the outdoor furniture on your patio every day. In that case, you’ll want to think about what they do with their time and who will be maintaining your outdoor furniture before you buy it. An avid gardener will not want to wind their way around picnic tables and lounge chairs to get to their planters. Children will put their bicycles away a lot more often if they have a bike rack to ride them up to. Garbage won’t end up on the ground in your yard if you have an outdoor garbage can. These are functional considerations. You may also be thinking about your own needs to have a place to read and soak up the sun or to sit in the shade while you watch the kids play. There are combinations for every kind of activity. You just have to find what works for you and your yard.