Outdoor living is a lifestyle. It’s not only an aesthetic touch; it also is soul-nourishing. Nothing compares to an outdoor BBQ party with the family or enjoying stargazing by the pool. Having your garden furniture sorted out can increase your enjoyments tenfold. However, sometimes, garden furniture comes with a heavy price tag. Do you know why?
Garden furniture is expensive because you need highly durable material that suits outdoor use. Unlike indoor furniture, your garden furniture will have to withstand the sun, wind, rain, and pests. When you don’t use durable material, which is expensive to source, your garden furniture will get damaged quickly.
What is there to know about why garden furniture is expensive? Is it worth the trouble? Find out more and get a profound view of outdoor living. It can be a shopping guide if you think of it that way, but it’ll also reveal some aspects of outdoor living that you never thought of before. So, keep reading and see what’s in store for you.
The Average Cost of Garden Furniture
Take a look at the factors that will affect the prices of furniture based on your needs. Then, you can get a realistic estimation of the average cost of your own garden furniture.
- Size: The more open your garden area, the more furniture you’ll need. For example, are you having a mini outdoor living room or a full-blown entertainment room?
- Style: Are you a minimalist? Price will vary based on your preferred style. Boho? Modern? Coastal? Mid-century? What’s your preference?
- Material: You can get dirt cheap garden furniture, but it wouldn’t survive a harsh winter. The more stylish and durable the material, the more expensive garden furniture will get.
- Design: Will your garden be at ground level or above the ground? The construction of your garden will determine what type of furniture you’ll need.
- Delivery and installation: Those two factors go together. For example, delivering overseas will be expensive. Then, if putting the furniture together requires a landscape designer, it’ll be another expense to take into account.
- Upgrades: Maybe you need to upgrade your garden area to include new furniture. It can add up to the cost if it’s a comprehensive upgrade. Like, when you install a new lighting system to put a sofa under the spotlight.
- Weather: The weather in your area will also affect your garden furniture, whether you like it or not. For instance, if it’s sunny or rainy, you’ll need more covers.
Now that you have the main factors that affect the average cost of garden furniture in mind, you should know that there are more depending on your unique circumstances.
Maybe these factors will have an indirect effect on the garden furniture costs. After all, your garden is yours. But, knowing where you stand will help you target the perfect price range to have the garden furniture you always wanted.
Here is an idea of the cost of putting all these factors together.
The average cost of garden furniture is between $300 and $21,000. You can fully furnish your garden with $300 if it’s small and if you only need basic items. Or, you can spoil yourself and spend anywhere near the $21,000 range. For mid-range garden furniture, you’re looking at a $4,000 cost, give or take.
Loveseats are one of the top outdoor furniture that most homeowners purchase. Since outdoor furniture tend to be on the pricier side, it is important to make sure that the loveseat that you are going to purchase is comfortable and made of good quality materials. If you are looking for suggestions, here are the 11 best outdoor loveseats available in the market today.
Reasons Why Garden Furniture Is Expensive
The target customer of garden furniture is likely to be more sophisticated and have better taste than most. Not everyone has a garden, and not everyone is keen on furnishing it.
You can say that garden furniture leans more towards luxury goods on the spectrum of consumer goods. Anyway, it’s one explanation for why garden furniture is expensive. And there are other factors to consider.
Supply and Demand
Like other commodities, supply and demand also affects garden furniture. Thus, when demand for garden furniture rises, the prices rise as well. High demand will affect manufacturers’ ability to fulfill a high volume of orders. So, prices will naturally increase.
Plus, furniture suppliers need a lot of space to store the goods, which poses another challenge. Eventually, prices go up as they expand their storage spaces. In addition to the storage issue, shipping is another challenge because furniture is heavy, bulky, and takes a lot of space.
Furniture manufacturers do not usually raise prices on purpose but are rather obligated to as it takes lots of resources to build and ship furniture.
Made to Last
Luxurious materials and fabrics are the leading contributing factors to the astronomical cost of garden furniture. Exposure to sun, wind, pets, and kids calls for durable materials that’ll last against constant wear and tear. However, sourcing these materials from nature is costly for both the manufacturers and suppliers.
The primary materials used in garden furniture are aluminum, wood, iron, plastic, resin, lumber, teak, steel, and fiber. Garden furniture makers use advanced machinery to extract and refine these materials from nature. So, the costs of energy, expertise, and machinery to build garden furniture represent other contributing factors.
- Wood: It’s the favored material thanks to its adaptability. It also blends well with the natural feel of the garden and comes in many types to adapt to changing weather conditions.
- Resin Wicker: This material is a mixture of nylon, polyethylene, and PVC. Together, they give the feeling of natural wicker. Resin wicker comes in many colors, patterns, and styles and goes well with metal.
- Steel: It’s the middle ground between aluminum and wrought iron. Most of the time, durable steel also comes at an affordable price.
- Wrought Iron: It is the ideal material for a vintage look as it is super durable and beautiful.
- Cast aluminum: It is the most common garden furniture material thanks to its sturdiness and resistance properties. It is usually power-coated to increase its longevity.
High Quality Standards
A lot goes into garden furniture than meets the eye. Beyond materials, many people will work together to design, build, and deliver the furniture.
Creating quality garden furniture is a long process that takes a lot of time, energy, and work. And the higher the quality, the higher the price. For example, when you buy cheap wood furniture, you can’t expect it to perform like high-end furniture.
While cheap furniture tends to disintegrate and break down with the slightest use, you can expect high-end furniture to be heavy-duty, stylish, and hard to damage.
High-quality garden furniture will last up to 15 years. Sometimes, it’ll even last a lifetime. It’s an investment that pays for itself by saving you from buying new furniture every season. Like with everything worth having, with garden furniture, you get what you pay for.
Agelessness
Furniture trends and aesthetics are ever-changing. Nobody wants to purchase expensive garden furniture only for it to become obsolete a few months later. Thus, furniture designers put a lot of brainstorming into designing ageless furniture that’ll remain stylish over the years.
Hopefully, you don’t only want attractive garden furniture but also want to add value to your home. However, the combination of style and value always comes at a price. Still, you can shop for affordable garden furniture during the sales season, between August and October.
Growing Popularity
With other commodities, when competition increase, prices go down. But with garden furniture brands, competition leads to a higher price.
As demand grows, brands will compete to provide the best quality furniture. As they create better designs, their manufacturing costs go up, and so they raise their prices.
Is Expensive Garden Furniture Worth It? Whether you’re a homeowner or responsible for an outdoor facility, you want the best garden furniture money can buy. Is garden furniture costly? Without a doubt, it is. But it has some merits.
Economical
Instead of buying several garden furniture sets over the years, expensive garden furniture is a one-time expense. Once you invest in it, it’ll pay for itself.
Low-maintenance
Cheap garden furniture carries another hidden cost in the form of covers and storage. During the winter, it’ll be more trouble to store garden furniture. And if you don’t have enough space, you’ll need to invest in covers.
You can avoid these extra expenses with high-quality garden furniture as furniture on the higher end can survive the winter. Plus, it’ll also need less maintenance and renovations.
Comfort
High-end garden furniture doesn’t sacrifice comfort for the sake of lowering the price. Thus, you’ll enjoy garden furniture that offers more warmth than items that come with a low price tag.
If you’re planning to spend more time outdoors, you’ll need comfortable furniture that hugs you. On the other hand, cheaper furniture looks good but offers minimum enjoyment.
Durability
Thanks to the sturdy materials and excellent craftsmanship, expensive garden furniture lasts longer. It’ll keep performing comfortably over the years as if each time you use it was the first time. On the contrary, cheap garden furniture’s performance degrades over time.
The litmus test is to know whether it suits your lifestyle. If you throw parties, tend to your garden often, and enjoy your own personalized environment, then expensive garden furniture will be worth it to you.
Quality is always the top priority when it comes to home furniture, and Eastern red cedar is distinguished for making world-class quality home furniture. But, is Eastern red cedar good for outdoor furniture? Read our article to find out.
Conclusion
If you want to have a beautiful outdoor space that you love to spend some time in with your family and friends, it is inevitable that you will spend more money that what you initially thought. To create a comfortable and inviting atmosphere in your backyard, you need to invest in good quality outdoor furniture pieces.
Since your garden furniture will be staying outdoors for a majority of the year, you need to get pieces that can withstand the elements. Good build and good quality also means that you will have to do minimal maintenance which will save you some time and money as well.
If you consider the future, getting expensive garden furniture may be tough on your wallet right now, but because of their longevity, you will be able to use them for a long time, unlike cheap furniture which you will need to replace every year. By investing in expensive yet good quality garden furniture now, you will be saving money in the future.
