Patio Furniture

Are you planning an outdoor event in the near future? If you live in the continental United States, spring is almost here and it’s the time to plan your outdoor parties for your friends and families now that winter is almost gone. If your outdoor party is going to be in the afternoon and may spill over into the evening you’ll need some type of lighting so your guests won’t be stumbling around in the dark.

Some of the more popular outdoor party lights currently available are:

Solar outdoor lights – In the past few years these have become more widely available and can be bought in almost as many styles and designs as traditional outdoor lighting systems that are plugged into an outdoor outlet. The biggest advantage of them is since you don’t need to plug them in you can place them anywhere you can imagine. The downside is that if they don’t absorb enough sunlight during the day they won’t stay on very long at night.

Decorative patio string lights – These are weather resistant lights that are on a piece of electrical wire with a plug at one end. Usually the lights are every ten to fourteen inches on that strand and the wire is usually about six to ten feet long. Other than that there is no ending what shape and sizes the lights come in. From lanterns to small globes to NFL miniature footballs if you can imagine it, someone makes it.

LED rope lights – Rope lights are one of the most common types of outdoor party lights on the market today because they come in a great variety of colors and sizes. That, coupled with their durability and ease of use, makes them so popular. Imagine wrapping them around your deck posts or trees to make a stripe effect or even just hanging them from your decks rails or rafters for ambient lighting they are always a hit at any party.

If you have just finished installing a patio in your backyard, you are probably looking forward to buying the furniture and other accessories to make it feel like an outdoor room. There are many considerations to make, including the size and shape of the table you want, how many chairs you can fit, whether you want potted plants for decoration, etc. One of the most important elements of a typical patio is being able to sit in the shade during the day, and a patio umbrella is a popular way to provide that shade. The options for outdoor umbrellas is staggering, and once you begin your search you will find out just how much variety is available. One type of umbrella you might not consider before you start shopping is a lighted umbrella, since you might not have known they exist, or maybe you just can’t see the benefit. After all, the umbrella is for shade, so why does it need lights?

Well, it might not. It all depends on how you plan on using your patio. If you are strictly going to use it for daytime relaxing or grilling, then there probably isn’t much of a need to have lights on the umbrella, or anywhere else on the patio. A porch light or other outdoor light will be necessary to prevent accidents if someone does happen to walk through the patio at night, but other than the basic safety concerns you would have no need for lighting.

On the other hand, if twilight meals or late nights relaxing in the cool summer air figure into your plans, you would be doing yourself a favor to decide on functional, and possibly decorative, lighting as you furnish your patio. Buying an outdoor umbrella with lights can save you some trouble in that area, since the lights will already be installed on the umbrella and you won’t have to worry about attaching them yourself. The lights on these umbrellas usually resemble string lights, which is a kind of umbrella light that can also be purchased separately if you don’t want the added expensive of having them pre-installed. Depending on how much light the individual bulbs give off they might be only useful as decoration, so be sure to take that into consideration before depending entirely on your umbrella to provide all the needed light on the patio.