I bought patio furniture last year, and decided on cast aluminum because it is maintenance-free. I looked at absolutely everything, and ended up lucking out and finding a set of used Cast Classics on Ebay. My advice is to try sitting on anything you're considering. The Cast Classics chairs are so comfortable that we're not even using cushions on them. Chairs from some other companies were not comfortable. You can tell right away.

I think it really depends on your preference as far as patio furniture goes. We really wanted wood furniture, and wanted something that would age well with little or no maintenance, and finally went with teak furniture from Wood Classics. We saved some money by ordering it in pieces and putting it together ourselves (my dh actually really enjoyed the project) and also by picking it up at their factory (only an hour or so away). We've had it a year and it has started to weather to a light tan - eventually it will turn a greyish and that's the look we wanted so it works for us. Don't have to cover it and will probably spray it down with their recommended deck cleaner in a few weeks, that is about it for maintenance. We've been extremely pleased with the company and with the quality of their product, FWIW.

For the grill, I looked into a bunch and finally went with the Weber Genesis Gold, which comes in either a liquid propane or a natural gas model. Again, only had it about a year, but have been very pleased. Very sturdy and very uniform cooking. Maybe it's just me, but I've noticed that most of the cooking resources rate the Webers very highly, whereas the Consumer Reports type mags like them but rate less expensive ones more highly (or at least did last year). We cook a lot and are somewhat particular, so I finally went with the Weber and wouldn't change the decision. Hope that helps!

Here is a link that might be useful: Wood Classics

We bought a beautiful (and quite pricey) teak dining set from Kingsley-Bate and while it looks great and will last us a lifetime, it is honestly not very comfortable and I rather regret the purchase because of that fact. For our pool we just finished last fall, we decided on aluminum sling furniture. For hanging out for long periods of time, the comfort just cannot be beat. We ended up going with Tropitone furniture ordered from NC - www.patiosusa.com. Prices were unbeatable locally. It has not arrived yet so I can't comment on the delivery and condition, but the sales process and customer service to date we received has been outstanding. It's much nicer quality than what you can find at Home Depot, KMart, etc.

Thank you. I ended up ordering cast aluminum from Fortunoff and the chairs were comfortable even without cushions.

We also went for teak. We bought a 10 seater teak set and a tree bench to go round a beautiful oak tree we have in our garden. In the end, we decided to go with www.farawayfurniture.co.uk as it was highly recommended. Glad we did as they as they were just really good. Even installed the furniture for us and made sure we were completely happy before leaving. You should see our garden now, im really glad but wood, even teak (we want to keep the golden colour, not silver), needs a bit more attention then steel or plastic, but its well worth it imo.

Here is a link that might be useful: place we purchased our teak garden furniture