Garden

Lounging or dining, or a little of both

The first decision is how you actually use the space. Lounge sets sit low and deep for drinks and long conversations, and corner arrangements make the most of a patio bounded by walls or fencing. Dining sets sit at table height for proper meals outdoors, and suit a household that eats outside whenever the weather allows. Bistro sets are the compact answer for a balcony, a courtyard or a sunny corner that only needs seating for two.

Several of our ranges bridge the two, offering corner lounge dining arrangements where the table sits at an intermediate height, which works well if the garden has to do both jobs and there is only room for one set. Day beds and hanging chairs add a spot for one person to disappear with a book, and benches tuck away against a wall when they are not needed.

Materials and looking after them

Outdoor furniture earns its keep by shrugging off a British summer. Powder-coated aluminium frames stay light enough to move around and resist rust, which makes them a sound choice near the coast. Woven all-weather rattan gives the softer, more relaxed look most people picture for a lounge set and keeps its colour well. Timber brings natural warmth and silvers gently over time if left untreated, or holds its tone with an occasional oiling.

Cushions are best brought in or stored dry when the forecast turns, and a garden storage box makes that a two-minute job rather than a chore. A parasol with a properly weighted base extends the usable hours considerably, and the base matters more than people expect, since a light one will not hold a large canopy steady on a breezy afternoon.

Measuring the space

Patios are easier to overfill than living rooms, partly because an empty slab looks larger than it is. Marking out the footprint with chalk or string before ordering is a genuinely useful five minutes, and leaving around a metre of clearance behind dining chairs keeps the space comfortable to move through.

It is also worth thinking about access on delivery day, since garden furniture often has to travel through the house or down a side passage. Our White Glove delivery team will bring everything through and position it for you, so letting us know about a narrow gate or a step down to the patio in advance helps the day run smoothly.

Ranges and coordinating pieces

Most of our garden furniture is designed as complete ranges, so a lounge set, a dining set and the occasional pieces around them share the same frame finish and cushion fabric. That makes it straightforward to start with the seating and add to it in a later season without the garden looking pieced together.

The Madron range is the broadest here, spanning bistro, dining and lounge arrangements alongside sofas, chairs and side tables, and the Cumbria range offers a generously proportioned corner lounge. The Cumbria Corner Lounge Set is a good illustration of how much seating a corner arrangement fits into a modest patio, and the Lloret Hanging Chair comes in single and double widths in three colourways. For ideas on pulling an outdoor room together, our outdoor living inspiration pages are worth a browse, and our garden living article looks at bringing an indoor sensibility outside.