Save Money By Re-Purposing Your Outdoor Furniture For the Winter
One of my favorite summertime activities is sitting outside on the deck. Whether it’s having a cold one with some friends, or laying on our outdoor couch reading or book or even taking a little nap, I love being outside. But as we enter the colder months of a Midwest winter, we are faced with the same question each year.
Where are we going to store our outdoor deck furniture?
While it is outdoor furniture, I don’t like leaving it exposed to the harsh winter elements. So each fall, I play a fun game of deck furniture Tetris trying to fit the pieces together such that it takes up as little space as possible in our garage. But this year, my wife came up with an alternate place to put some of our deck furniture.
Why not put it in our downstairs recreation room?
I thought it was a fantastic idea. We had just gone through the basement and gotten rid of all my son’s toys that he had outgrown long ago. We also just did a TV shuffle, which resulted in a larger, high definition TV being placed in the basement. We did have a couch already down there, but when my son has his friends over there was always a shortage of seats.
We had recently had a contractor come to our home and give us an estimate to redo our basement into a home theater room with a wet bar. Unfortunately, the estimate came in way higher than we were willing to spend at this time. Disappointed, we had informed the contractor that we would have to wait to renovate our basement into our dream adult playroom.
However we still wanted to make some improvements to our basement. Between the addition of a better TV, a little rearranging, and the addition of our outdoor couch, we were able to upgrade the functionality of our basement significantly. The colors work well together, and even though it is meant to be outdoor furniture, it doesn’t look too out of place at all.
When we were all done, we called our son downstairs to take a look. He doesn’t get outwardly excited much, but the smile and the nod of his head told us he approved.
“I’d hang out down here,†he said.
I high fived my wife on a job well done. The garage was less cluttered for the winter months, and the basement had some additional furniture at least until spring. All for the low cost of FREE.
Have you ever re-purposed outdoor furniture for use indoors?
Brock is a software engineer by day and personal finance blogger at night. He is a fitness junkie and enjoys grilling and smoking meat. Married with two children, Brock strives to improve his skills as a husband and father, and is always on the lookout to stretch his family’s budget as far as he can.
That’s a great idea and honestly, one I’ve never thought of before! We’ve been leaving our poor wrought iron set outside to endure the harsh Boston winters. Maybe I’ll rescue it this year and throw it in the basement!
I’ve put ours in various places over the years. Taking it up and down the stairs was too much plus we don’t have anywhere where it could be setup like you have. We tried the Tetris thing in the garage and that just took up way too much room as you also noticed. Our deck has a few feet of space under it so this year I have put everything under there, and covered it up. I’m hoping that this works as a good solution.
@Mrs. Frugalwoods – Why only use the furniture for a few months out of the year….right? Let’s get our money’s worth!
@moneybeagle – I suggested doing the same….but my wife didn’t like the idea of having it tucked away under the deck where someone could take it without us realizing it (not that someone couldn’t do the same thing with it sitting ON our deck during the summer…but….). I’m just glad that we found a useful place for it!
What a great way to repurpose your outdoor furniture and create some extra living/TV space (on a dime) for the winter. You gave me a good idea.
@Design Furnishings – glad I could give you an idea…..let us know how it works out for you!