Our Budget Dining Room: 8 months later

Our dining room was one of the first spaces we invested in when moving into our new home. We knew a larger table was needed. Desperately. My old girl from college had seen better days, and our family was about to outnumber our chairs.

But hunting for a dining set, on a budget, and knowing toddlers were probably going to destroy it with everyday life happenings made it so much harder to pull the plug on such a large purchase.

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Until, we decided to think a bit outside the box. And found exactly what we were looking for in the outdoor section.

Yep, you read that right, outdoor furniture.

I couldn’t recommend this set enough to you guys, so I wanted to share an update here, to fill you all in on how it’s going!

Guys, we are in love.

We don’t flinch or cringe every time our toddler stabs her fork into the surface. Because toddlers like to stab forks into tables? Apparently, I guess.

We don’t freak if our preschooler accidentally colors off the edge of her paper.

Or spills glitter glue down the side of the bench.

It’s all okay. Because this is life right now with so many littles at home. And it works SO WELL for us! We can spend more time focusing on our time together, and less time worrying about our things (See what I did there? Tied a bit of minimalism into it for you).

Shop The Look

Pro’s of an outdoor dining set:

It’s solid wood! Every set we looked at in a furniture store was made of a laminate or wood veneer material. Meaning it wasn’t solid wood. Perks of solid wood: it’s sturdier, more durable, and can be refinished! So if in five years the surface is all marked up and I want a fresh look, a quick sand, stain and top coat, and I’ll have a good-as-new looking table and bench!

It’s lightweight. Because it’s an outdoor set, the wood and materials used are much more lightweight. I can lift and move this table and bench around with little to no effort all by myself. This makes cleaning the rug and floor underneath a breeze. And we all know how much that rug under our table needs cleaning!

It was SO budget friendly! I am zero percent ashamed to admit this beautiful table, benches (it comes with two!), four chairs and area rug were ALL purchased for under $700! That’s less than any single table we found in a furniture store, most of which didn’t even include dining chairs or rug.

A few things to consider:

Because this is an outdoor dining set, it has a few “faults” for normal indoor dining use.

There are large gaps between the planks, for water drainage I’d assume. So food does tend to fall between the gaps. In our case, I actually like it, because the crumbs land on the rug below, instead of scattered about our hardwood floor. A quick vacuum (which let’s be honest, I’m doing regularly anyway with all these crumb producing toddlers), and they’re up and away.

The wood texture is natural and “bumpy,” which paired with the gaps can be a bit of a nuisance if coloring or having craft time. Using place mats protects from this (as well as protects the table) during craft time. But otherwise, we just craft at our kitchen island.

If placing chairs on the ends of the table, the support bar is in the way. We “thread” the chair legs through so the end chairs can be tucked in all the way. It’s more of an annoyance when we have guests, but on the daily it isn’t an issue as we just use the side chairs and bench.

Hopefully this helps you guys decide if this set is the right one for you! We love it so much and just had to pass on this furniture hack to other families who might be in the same boat!

Amy