Patio Furniture

Store name: Cedar Store
Website: www.cedarstore.com

Description: CedarStore is located near Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. They started business in 1992. They started making their own furniture mainly out of cedar and have grown by leaps and bond since. They have a good internet program and ships patio, garden and outdoor patio furniture worldwide. They make most of their own products locally in their factory and resell/redistribute products from other manufacturers. They have a wide selection of products, more than most other stores. They have great product knowledge for they make the patio and outdoor furniture themselves.

Type of store: brick and mortar with internet sales

Types of products: Patio furniture selections include Benches, Swings, Chairs, Tables, Adirondack, Gazebos and just about anything else related to furniture. Furniture is made primarily of cedar.

Customer Service: Their customer service very good.

Sales Knowledge: Excellent.

Quality: Good.

Shipping: Good, most all products shipped on time. There are a few times the products where on back order and took 2-3 weeks to ship. Pretty common in this industry.

Price: Good

Selection: Excellent

Notes: I like this store in that they are also a manufacturer of their products. Most stores that make their own patio and outdoor deck furniture have outstanding customer service, sales knowledge and policies. The one outstanding feature for this store is their wide selection of products. A shopper can find almost anything they need from this store. Their quality is good but the thickness of the wood is average compared to other stores. Overall, a great store.

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Store name: Applegate Furniture
Website: www.applegatefurniture.com

Description: Applegate Furniture is located in Canfield Ohio. They are a brick and mortar store that also sells on the internet. This patio furniture store is unique in that they have very good business relationships with several Amish families that build patio and outdoor furniture by hand. They bring the products down to the store once or twice a week. Applegate Furniture store then resells these products locally and via the internet. Most of the sales are local although they are trying to grow the internet business.

Type of store: brick and mortar with internet sales

Types of products: Benches, Swings, Chairs, Tables, Adirondack furniture made of cedar, poplar, recycled plastic and a few others.

Customer Service: Their customer service is the best I have found. Ask for Tiffany or Paul. See notes below.

Sales Knowledge: Excellent.

Quality: Excellent

Shipping: Good, most all products shipped on time. There are a few times the products where on back order and took 2-3 weeks to ship. Pretty common in this industry.

Price: Good

Selection: Average

Notes: This is one of the stores that I used in my business. They drop shipped all my orders for me for over 4 years or so. They have the best customer service of any of my stores that I worked with. If a product was damaged during delivery, they would replace it with no questions asked. They usually sent out a replacement part and not an entire patio furniture product.

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I once had a client that asked if I could put wheels on all the patio furniture pieces she was interested in. This was an older lady that wanted to move the patio furniture around her deck based on the season. She could not lift the heavy pieces so putting wheels on them really made sense. The customer also wanted a hole drilled in the patio tables to put an umbrella. I have had several requests for the umbrella whole but not the wheels.

I was also interested in this question so I contacted the deck furniture manufacturer and they indicated that they could put the wheels on. There would be a fee however ( $30 per piece ). Most of the big stores ( certainly all the larger manufacturers, chain stores etc ) would never accommodate this type of request. This is a good argument that purchasing outdoor deck furniture from a smaller manufacture has its’ benefits.

Benches are a very popular item when buying patio furniture. Next to dinning sets, Benches where the next best selling item for my store. Swings where the next best seller. As for benches, there are but a few types. The basic bench has a seat, backrest and legs. As with chair styles, the back slats are usually vertical ( up and down ) rather than horizontal ( across ). The vertical slats are shorter and therefore more stronger. The second type of bench style is with or without arm rests. Here are some examples of benches.




Another type of bench is a highback. Highback have a higher backrest than regular benches. Highback styles of benches are usually more compfortable while lounging. Here are some examples of highback benches.




I added a few pictures of bences that also do not have a backrest. The last two are made of cherry. Back to patio furniture styles

What you may ask? How many styles of chair can there be? Well, it turns out there are more styles of chairs that any other type of patio furniture. Here is some basic information.

Dinning or Casual
Vertical Slats or Horizontal Slats
Highback or Regular Backrest
Flattop, fan or decorative backrest
Arm rests or no arm rests

Chairs can be categorized by dinning chair or casual chair. The dinning style chair has a more upright backrest that makes sitting at a dinner table more comfortable. The casual style of chair has the backrest not quite as upright as the dinning chair. These chairs are more suited to sitting around a coffee table leaning back and talking with friends. It is less comfortable to sit upright in casual chairs. Here are some examples of dinner and casual chairs.


Notice that the first picture the backrest is more reclined. The second picture the backrest is more vertical. What chair would you prefer to use at a dining table? What chair would you prefer to lounge around in?

The next style of chair is how the backrest slats are oriented. There are two basic types, vertical and horizontal. The thickness also varies on the slats. Some have a wider gap between the slats. There is no real difference between the slat orientations. It is just a matter of preference. The first two are example is vertical stats, the bottom two are horizontal and a pattern.




Did you also notice that the chairs can be higher and lower. This is typically refered to as barstool height and regular chairs.




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