The Best Patio Furniture (And How to Shop for It)

Our initial research in 2016 rounded up 33 dining sets representing a promising balance of cost, features, and design. We whittled down that list by examining online reviews and, in some cases, talking to people who owned the furniture sets. We made trips to Home Depot and IKEA to examine sets in person and witness how shoppers reacted to them in the stores. Then we ordered three dining sets and timed how long it took to assemble them in a Los Angeles backyard. For our 2018 update, we ordered another two dining sets and assembled them in another Los Angeles backyard. During both tests, we examined screws, joints, and the apparent quality of construction. And, over the course of several weeks, we paid attention to how comfortable the dining sets were for different purposes, asking visitors to compare the comfort of the seats and the overall aesthetics of the sets. In June 2021, we researched six more patio dining sets. Due to testing limitations during the pandemic, we were not able to assemble these new sets at home. So we narrowed our search to dining sets that we could touch and analyze at big-box stores, that had great reviews at the time, and that were eligible for return or exchange. In 2022, we expanded our research to direct-to-consumer brands—like Article, Blu Dot, and Neighbor—and added larger dining sets and new outdoor living room options, such as sofas and lounge chairs.

SANTA MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Outer, the fastest growing direct-to-consumer home brand of 2020, today announces the close of a $50M Series B investment round. The new investment was led by Kathy Xu of Capital Today along with Tribe Capital, C Ventures, TRAC VC, and Upfront Ventures. Existing investors, including Sequoia Capital China, Mucker Capital, Mantis VC, Unpopular Ventures, and Reimagined Ventures also participated in the round. Outer raised $10.5M in Series A funding in January