Mother's Day & the Deck - Part Deux

Having purchased a few pieces, we were now on a mission to finish off the deck.  We spent most of Saturday going from store to store.  At a garden center up near Allentown, we fell in love with a rectangular table top gas fire pit with a granite top.  But at a price tag in the thousands, it was not to be.  We've been toying with whether to add a fire pit or not. We've also been trying to decide whether we want/need a dining set since we NEVER eat on the deck anyway (too many bugs).  The last time the rusted out grey set was used was two summers ago for Sarah's graduation party - and at that time it was brand new.  We've seen a few dining sets we liked okay if we were willing to spend in the range of $2000.  (Who knew outdoor furniture could be so pricey???) But nothing that we've fallen in love with.  So to be honest, despite shopping on both Saturday and Sunday, we haven't brought anything else home.  But we are looking at these:

This gas-powered fire-pit from (of all places) Wal-Mart.  We've seen some cheaper wood-burning ones at Lowes and Home Depot but have safety concerns of putting a wood-burning pit on a wooden deck.  But can't afford the high end multi-thousand dollar version we fell in love with, so this seems like a nice compromise. We're thinking about it.

This sage green (darker than shown in the photo) 10' offset umbrella from Country Junction (Ashley Furniture). It is actually an Ace Hardware brand and the most sturdy, yet most reasonably priced of all the offset umbrellas we have looked at.

IF we go with these two pieces, we would really only have room on the deck for two more chairs. No dining table. Although I think the firepit table top and our little slate tables would fill the need for table space.  We would also go from being able to seat 10 on the deck (the furniture that we are replacing) to only being able to seat six.  I'm not convinced it matters - there are usually only five of us here - on the rare occasions we have company, we could bring out seating from the house if needed.  Ah, decisions!

Not having made any purchases on Saturday, we went back out on Sunday (yes, Mother's Day) after I had started laundry, stripped and made the bed, polished the dining room table, went grocery shopping, and did a little more laundry.  First store - closed.  Second store - nothing we liked. Third store - Bucks Country Garden - we had never been there before. We didn't find any outdoor furniture we liked but we did find this:


It is a hibiscus bush that has been trained into a tree.  We're having a bit of a cold snap right now, so it is indoors, but as soon as the weather warms back up, it will go out on the deck.  It has the most incredibly gorgeous blossoms!  See for yourself:

I absolutely fell in LOVE with this plant when we saw it at the Garden Center. Reminds me of Hawaii.

Also found THIS for the front porch:

Bought the pot, base and flowers. The pot is in my happy colors - green and blue. And the flowers are just impatiens (which are nice and hardy for the crazy weather here). I was leaning toward some variegated leaf stuff, but Jay wanted these and it works for me. This is my attempt to make the front of the home more inviting.  Here's the complete picture now:

Complete with inadvertent self-portrait!

Finished off my Mother's Day with dinner at Outback Steakhouse.  I had the Signature Sirloin & Snow Crab special with loaded baked potato:

Delicious! 

Topped off with a trip to Dairy Queen for a choco cherry love blizzard.  Yummm.   Hope your Mother's Day was as tasty as mine!