It’s not even November and I’m already dreaming of summer. I’m going to be a basket case by March!

Instead of preparing the pool and patio for winter… I’ve been searching for a very specific patio umbrella that we saw on our recent trip to Disneyland. The umbrella is aluminum or fiberglass petal leaf construction in a multi-color palette. Can’t seem to find a resource for them, so if anyone knows where to get them please let me know. It looks kind of like this:

They may be vintage and out of production (welcome to my world.) We’d love a backyard full of high quality vintage patio furniture, but unfortunately pieces are rare and usually in poor shape or outrageously expensive! This stuff will be used a lot and we need it to hold up to use, abuse and the lovely Pacific NW weather. With that in mind, I’m looking at NEW.

In the search process I have found some interesting options for our patio and pool.

Umbrella Option 1: Fiberglass umbrella with star burst

Belson Outdoor offers this in several stock colors. Not too exciting. But wait! We may have a winner with STM Industries that offers the same fiberglass umbrella with over 200 custom colors!!!!!

Umbrella Option 2: Aluminum top umbrella

Park N Pool offers a few options for aluminum top umbrellas. I love this color. (See previous post on color scheme) Don’t know if this is what we want in the backyard… too much of a good thing is never good. Luckily they offer quite a few color options:

Furniture Options: Panama and Pacific Island Weave Collections

This site also offers patio furniture. We have approx. 1200 sq. ft. of deck and patio surrounding the pool, so we need some furniture to break up the expanse.

Park N Pool also offers some chair designs that are kinda fun. (This is the closest thing I’ve found to that “resort” feel we are trying to accomplish in the backyard design.)

These nifty patio chairs go great with the aluminum umbrella! The site offers a design generator to custom design the color weave on these chairs. Sweet! Plus the chairs and chaise are all stackable (perfect for our weather.)

Time to wake up and get back to work!