Caring For Your Patio Umbrella

umbrellas Last month we talked a little about all the different types of umbrellasthat All American Fine Outdoor Furnishings has to offer, as well as what their different featured entailed. This month I think it is important to go over outdoor patio umbrella maintenance, something that many people neglect. There are many reasons why regularly cleaning and maintaining your patio umbrella is important. The most important reason is to insure that you get your full money’s worth. Taking proper care of your patio umbrella will prolong its life by many years. Umbrellas have a tough life if you really think about it. They have to endure much wear and tear from all types of weather conditions. Harsh sunlight, winds, heavy rain, and of course dust! Some people even leave their umbrellas out during the winter so we mind as well add snow to that mix as well. As you can probably imagine, these conditions dry out, wear down and dirty your patio umbrella overtime, causing pre-mature rips, extreme fabric fading and warped or rusted structural damage. Tips for reducing weather related wear and tear:

  1. Always close your umbrella when it is not in use. This will minimize full sun exposure, reducing fabric color fading.
  2. Bring your umbrella inside if you know it is going to rain.
  3. Do not leave your umbrella outside during the winter months, especially in climates where it snows and freezes.
  4. Cover or bring in umbrellas during very windy days.

Tips for cleaning your patio umbrella: The best way to clean your umbrella is with your garden hose.

  1. Lay your open umbrella onto a sheet or tarp so that the umbrella does not touch the ground. It is best to do this on concrete so that the ground underneath does not become mud.
  2. After you complete this, hose your canopy down. This will loosen any dust and dirt that has built up in the fabric.
  3. Fill up a bucket of warm water. Add a touch of mild soup. With a washcloth or rag, gently scrub the entire umbrella. Give special attention to any stains.
  4. Hose off umbrella to remove any soap or left over dirt.
  5. To dry. Simply set umbrella into the sun.

Looking for a new patio umbrella? All American Fine Outdoor Furniture offers many types of patio umbrellas to fit your needs! Give us a call at 1.877.930.7070, visit our website or come in to any of our Arizona locations!

Who is Parker James?

Parker James is one of our favorite manufactures that we carry here at All American Fine Outdoor Furnishings.  Established in 2002, Parker James is already known for their unparalleled casual furnishing that all feature well-made and durable materials designed for luxury living.

Parker James prides itself on their stellar reputation as being one of the leaders in the industry by “seamlessly combining the best available materials and finishes to produce authentic, timeless furniture built to last”. Not only are the Parker James’ collections diverse and inspired from several places around the world, they are constantly updating their collections and adding new ones to ensure there’s a collection to fit everyone’s lifestyle.

The Parker James’ corporate office is located in Atlanta, Georgia with show rooms located in both Chicago, Illinois and China. Here are some of our favorite collections by Parker James:

The Alyssa Collection:  

Alyssa collectionThe Alyssa collection is among one of our best sellers.  Made with natural, all-weather wicker, hand woven over an aluminum frame, Parker James describes this collection as “a wicker collection with flare.”  The Alyssa collection features resin block feet and is a great collection for big or small sized patios and porches.

The Bella Collection:

Bella CollectionMeet the Bella Collection. Best known for its beautiful curves and tapers, the Bella Collection features an elegant design mixing both wicker and exposed aluminum. One of the most durable collections, the aluminum is stained to imitate mahogany wood. To top it off, Bella’s cushions are available in over 100 Sunbrella fabrics to ensure the best possible look for your outdoor space.

 The Calais Collection:

Calais WeatheredThe Calais Collection is one of Parker James’ most unique wicker collections. Made with long-wearing, UV-resistant resin strings, this collection is hand-woven into four inch squares creating great dimension and texture.  The Calais Collection features a rust-free aluminum frame and is great for places that endure a lot of sun.

Ready to purchase some new patio furniture that will last a lifetime? At All American Fine Outdoor Furnishingswe have a large selection of luxury patio furniture and patio accessories to turn your dream patio into a reality! All-American Fine Outdoor Furnishings is your source for great wicker and aluminum outdoor patio furniture covers! See our unmatched selection of outdoor patio furniture featuring wicker and aluminum furniture give us a call today to get started, 1.877.930.7070.

Four Outdoor Decorating Ideas

Mix Up Patterns and Solids

Wicker patio furniture

Calais Collection by Parker James - Hand-woven, UV-resistant and rust-free aluminum frame

Mixing up the fabrics you use on your patio can add extra interest to your overall décor. The use of patterns and solids together adds depth to your patio furniture creating an overall, more inviting and welcoming atmosphere.

Activity Spaces

Patio furniture

The Athena Collection by Summer classics features a curved and elegant design with N-Dura resin wicker.

Creating different zones by using smart furniture arrangement and outdoor rugs can help establish different activity areas for your patio. For example, place your main patio chairs and couches around a table or a fire pit in the largest area of your patio; this will create a relaxing and inviting atmosphere. For dining, place your table and chairs near your cooking area, or, if there is not enough room, near a corner. Not only will separating your spaces keep your patio from looking cluttered and confused, but it can also make your patio seem more spacious.

Combining Patio Materials

Patio furniture

The Rustic Collection by Summer Classics features resin wicker and is woven over a welded painted aluminum frame with weathered resin feet.

The floor of your patio is often overlooked but it can actually be one of the most interesting parts of your patio if executed correctly. How does this work? Instead of making your patio simply gravel, only stone, or just grass, mix two different types of materials together to make a usually boring area, interesting. The other great benefit of this is that it will generally save you money in the long run.

Patio Umbrellas

Patio furniture

The Royan Collection was named and inspired by a seaside resort in France The arms and legs feature Resysta, an eco-friendly material sealed in a scratch resistant coating.

For patios that lack natural shade purchasing a brightly colored large sun umbrella can really do wonders for your patio. Having a large umbrella will keep you out of the sun, making your patio more usable during the day. Another great thing about umbrellas is it adds a vertical element to your patio while also adding color overhead.

At All American Fine Outdoor Patio we have a large selection of luxury patio furniture , including outdoor rugs, umbrellas and fabric choices. Please visit your closet locations or shop our selection of patio furniture online!

Patio Umbrellas: How To Choose The Right Umbrella Features

There are a variety of patio umbrellas, all featuring different kinds of designs and options to choose from. For example, there is the “Button Tilt”, “Crank Tilt”, “Collar Tilt”, “Auto Tilt”, “Pulley Lift”, “Crank Lift” and so on. So today’s blog post is dedicated to educating you on patio umbrellas.

Lift Style

Pulley-lift vs. Crank-lift

Pulley-lift umbrellas are your standard patio umbrellas that require you to pull a string and insert the metal pin into a hole to hold the umbrella in the open position. A crank-lift umbrella has a crank on the pole and opens the umbrella with a series of gears.

Tilt Style

Push-button tilt umbrella

Push-Button Tilt Umbrella

Push-Button Tilt

A button tilt umbrella is exactly what it sounds like, and it is probably the tilt style you have seen and are most familiar with. By pushing in a button on the umbrella pole, this simple mechanism releases an upright lock that allows you to then tilt your umbrella into your desired position.

Auto-crank

Crank Tilt Umbrella

Auto Tilt / Crank Tilt

When you hear Auto Tilt or Crank Tilt don’t be fooled, they are both referring to the same tilting mechanism.  Auto Tilt or Crank tilt, is only available on crank lift umbrellas. How it works is once your umbrella is fully open, all you have to do is keep cranking and it will start to tilt to one side. The greatest part about auto tilt is that as the sun moves, you don’t have to get up and mess with a button to keep tilting it, you can do it right from your chair!

Collar tilt umbrella

Collar Tilt Umbrella

Collar Tilt

Collar Tilt is very similar to auto tilt and sometimes can be refereed to a type of auto tilt. This mechanism instead of being built right into the crank, instead has a ring or a collar that is located right about the crank. The greatest benefit of this type of tilt is you can create a combination of both tilt angle and open

 

Looking for a new umbrella for your patio? All American Fine Outdoor Furniture offers many types of patio umbrellas to fit your needs! Give us a call at 1.877.930.7070, visit our website or come in to any of our Arizona locations!

Pantone’s Color for 2013: Emerald Green

Green patio

Last month, the Pantone color of the year was announced and Emerald Green takes the hot seat for best color, as it should. Emerald is the perfect mix of radiance and fun while still remaining elegant and luxurious. Its bold hue makes it the perfect accent color that you can easily integrate into any existing color palette!

Emerald Green Accent Ideas

When decorating with accents of emerald green, it’s important to keep large surface areas a neutral color for several different reasons: keeping the overall fabric a neutral color will allow you to update your decor on a seasonally basics without having to purchase new furniture. This will allow you to give your patio a makeover by simply replacing throw pillows or patio rugs in bright hues.

Emerald’s Complimentary colors

Green accent colors are great because they have a calming ambiance to them. It is also the color of nature that surrounds us everyday and therefore mixes well with a variety of colors. Here are a few colors that pair well with this year’s Pantone color, emerald green.

  • * White
  • * Cream
  • * Yellow
  • * Purple
  • * Gray
Green, yellow and gray rooms

Other Shades of Green

Just because Emerald is the Pantone color this year, doesn’t mean you can’t use a different shade of green. Picking what color green you want to use may depend largely on factors such as existing color themes and, of course, personal preference. In fact many different green shades made the top of the list this year.

Looking to upgrade your patio furniture this year? At All American Fine Outdoor Furnishings we have a large selection of luxury patio furniture and patio accessories to turn your dream patio into a reality! All-American Fine Outdoor Furnishings is your source for great wicker and aluminum outdoor patio furniture covers! See our unmatched selection of outdoor patio furniture featuring wicker and aluminum furniture give us a call today to get started, 1.877.930.7070.

Spruce-Up Your Patio with Outdoor Accessories

An important part of utilizing your patio to its fullest potential is to make the exterior feel as homey and comfortable as the interior of your home. Often times a few patio accessories can turn your boring patio into a luxury outdoor living space, here are  a few design tips to help turn your patio into a luxury living space.

Wall Art

Wall Art

Wall art instantly adds interest to a room; outdoor wall art will make your patio feel custom and bring a little of your inside decor taste, outside. Be careful though, you don’t want to clutter your patio with too many things and completely take away from the beautiful outdoors!

Outdoor Rugs

Outdoor Rug

 

 

 

 

Who says rugs are just for the inside! Rugs look great outdoors too! Incorporating an outdoor rug on your patio can add an extra element of interest and typically work best with covered patios since they are less exposed to the natural elements.

Patio Lamps

Outdoor Lamp

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is one of our favorite patio accessory and unfortunately, many homeowners often overlook this aspect of their outdoor living. Outdoor lamps are a great outdoor living accessory, it allows you to enjoy and utilize your patio for a longer period of time. You many be saying to yourself, well isn’t that what fire pits are for? Yes, but also having a lamp is handy for those hot summer nights or when a fire pit does not provide the right amount of light.

Wall table or Chest

Out door long table

 

 

 

 

Incorporating a wall table with drawers or a storage chest is another great accessory to have on your patio. Again, these type of thing works best with covered patios, so the rain does not ruin your furniture. Wall tables with drawers come in handy for storing outdoor accessories you use regularly outside such as: books, remotes, candles, lighters, and even your gardening tools. Chests are great for extra throw pillows or a spare blanket for the chillier nights.

All American Fine Outdoor Furnishings has a wide selection of patio accessories with all types of styles. Spruce up your patio today! Shop online or come and visit us in store at either of our locations.

The Spirit of Giving Back

Happy Holidays everyone! We hope you have a holiday season full of love and happiness! This year we really wanted to make sure that we, as a local business, give back to our community. We decided to do a Facebook “like” challenge. For the whole month of December, every new like we receive on Facebook we will donate a dollar to the Phoenix Children’s Hospital.

The Phoenix Children’s Hospital has been providing excellent care for children since 1983 and is now one of the largest children’s hospitals in the country. This year  Phoenix Children’s Hospital was ranked among the top 50 Children’s hospitals across four medical specialties including: Neonatology (#50) Nephrology (39) Neurology & Neurosurgery (#40) and Pulmonology (#47).

The Phoenix Children’s Hospital prides themselves on their specialty programs and ongoing innovative research. Just last week the Phoenix Children’s Hospital announced that they would be creating the “Ronald A. Matricaria Institute of  Molecular Medicine.” This new institute will allow for extensive research that will hopefully one day unlock the secretes connecting medicine and genetic codes. Researchers intend to study a patients genetic makeup to give them insight about common question that doctors normally wouldn’t be able to answer. Some of those questions include: how one’s body will react to a certain kind of medicine and, how susceptible a particular child is to a disease.

So how will our money help the children? All donations to Phoenix Children’s Hospital goes towards making sure the hospital has the best of the best! Donations help make it possible for Phoenix Children’s Hospital to offer the best medical specialists, the newest cutting-edge technology, and the best service regardless of a family’s ability to pay.

Our goal is to reach 100 like’s for a total of a hundred dollars. So far we have raised 25 dollars! Please help us reach our goal by heading over to our Facebook page and giving us a like! Please help us spread the word by sharing our Facebook page with your family and friends!

Holiday Dining

As the weather begins to get cooler and the holiday season is quickly approaching; we are jumping at the chance to spend more time on our patio. With family coming in town over the next few weeks for the holidays, we’re thrilled to wine and dine with them in the outdoors. However, finding an outdoor patio furniture set that is large enough to accommodate our guests and is equally as comfortable can be a difficult task. Here are a few of our favorite patio furniture sets that will fit you and your guests.

Volare Cushion Patio Seating: This is the ideal patio seating for those memorable evenings, surrounded by those who mean the most to you; exchanging stories and roasting marshmallows over the firepit.  It also can accommodate a large group of guests too!

Sedona Sling Dining Set: This outdoor dining set is ideal for upcoming holiday dinners, it can accommodate six guests comfortably and you can easily add a few more chairs if needed.

Looking to upgrade your patio furniture this fall? At All American Fine Outdoor Furnishings we have a large selection of luxury patio furniture and patio accessories to turn your dream patio into a reality! All-American Fine Outdoor Furnishings is your source for great wicker and aluminum outdoor patio furniture covers! See our unmatched selection of outdoor patio furniture featuring wicker and aluminum furniture give us a call today to get started, 1.877.930.7070.

Two-In-One Fire Pits

What’s new for 2013?

TONS! We are adding a lot of different products to our collection this coming New Year! Here is a sneak peek to just one of the many great things to look forward too!

 Introducing The Tropitone® Fire Pit!

The Tropitone Fire Pit is a one-of-a-kind fire pit that kills two birds with one stone! So what makes this fire pit special? The Tropitone fire pit comes with an optional grill pan that sits easily on top of your Tropitone fire pit.

This fire pit is a great option for those who may not have enough space for both a fire pit and a grill or simply for families that enjoy both. This unique fire pit has a burner system that produces a wide rage of heat output, peaking at 90,000 BTU’s. This allows for more versatile control for both cooking and heat output.

Consider these scenarios:

1)You are hanging out by a log burning fire pit and your legs feel like they are on fire, so you move away. But then the logs burn up and the fire is burning low so you throw more logs on. Now the fire is raging and you’re back to square one. Tropiton fire pits allow you to have a steady temperature that can be easily adjusted to your heat preference.

2) You are cooking on the same fire pit as explained above. The grill you are using has wide-set bars where food can easily fall through. If you have ever cooked on one of these, you will know that it can be difficult at times. The meat is sticking and pieces are falling through the wide set grill bars. The flame is not consistent and can often take twice as long to cook. With the Tropitone fire pit detachable grill top these problems will be a thing of the past.

The grill top was designed with a closed surface for an easier  grilling experience. Without the hassle of unstable temperatures and the worry of loosing food between wide set metal bars that are commonly found on fire pits. The optional grill pan allows for a wide heat range from 350 to 500 degrees. Have you ever tried to grill delicate fish on an open fire before? The experience is often times not pleasant. The Tropiton grill top will make grilling fish a cinch while impressing your friends and family!

Now you may be thinking, wow 90,000 BMU’s is quite a lot for a fire pit. Think it’s unsafe? We already thought about that for you. Each Tropiton fire pit was designed with safety in mind and is complete with an automatic safety shut off valve!

Here is a quick overview of  Tropitone Fire Pits:

  • Beautiful and functional
  • Comes in Square and round table top styles
  • Optional grill pan that allows easy and clean grilling
  • Reaches up to 90,000 BMU’s
  • Automatic safety shut off valve

Interested? Keep up to date with All American Fine Outdoor Furnishings product release dates on our Facebook page  and Twitter

 

Fall 2012 Patio Trends: Wicker Furniture

Colors, curves, textures, and trends is an easy way to freshen up your backyard style for fall with new luxury outdoor furniture. Why not replace that old worn patio furniture with something newer, fresher, and up to date with the current trends for 2012? Wicker outdoor furniture is the ideal match for this year’s contemporary color palette and textured design.

The demand for wicker patio furniture, a longtime favorite, is higher than ever this fall. Want to know why so many home owners are choosing wicker patio furniture? Here are just a few reasons:

  • Durability: Wicker is made from a strong material called poly-resins. This extra durable material is designed to withstand all weather conditions, including those haboobs that have been visiting the valley quite frequently! Look for wicker furniture with aluminum frames for added durability; patio furniture made from resin wicker is also resilient if you live in a moist climate.
  • Lightweight: Wicker is lightweight and portable, yet it’s woven design makes it extremely sturdy and ideal for guests of all sizes. We recommend wicker furniture sets for home owners who enjoy entertaining.
  • Design: When mentioned the word “wicker” many people automatically imagine bright white wicker furniture with a garden feel however, it has a classic design and goes with any style. Might we add, it comes in a variety of colors too! Before selecting a furniture set consider the style and colors of your home to ensure it compliments the exterior.

Looking to upgrade your patio furniture this fall? At All American Fine Outdoor Furnishings we have a large selection of luxury patio furniture and patio accessories to turn your dream patio into a reality! All-American Fine Outdoor Furnishings is your source for great wicker and aluminum outdoor patio furniture covers! See our unmatched selection of outdoor patio furniture featuring wicker and aluminum furniture give us a call today to get started, 1.877.930.7070.