I found my octagonal umbrella at the swap shop at the dump. It lasted about 15 years for me! Unfortunately, when I pulled it out of the basement this spring, mice had dated away at the top of it, so I've had to buy a new one. It was an aluminum crank umbrella with a valance. Valance umbrellas are hard to find now, but I love them, and fortunately I mentioned my disappointment to the owner of the store I was buying the new umbrella from, and he looked in his book, and lo and behold, in the Commercial section, they have them! So I've got a 9 foot, octagonal umbrella with a valance coming. What I do, though, is drill a hole in the umbrella pole JUST where the pole meets the underside of the table, and then I put a pin of some kind through that hole. Umbrella cannot be lifted out of the stand/table that way. I have it over a rectangle table, and it's fine. Cyn, last year I bought this type of light for my dining table umbrella. It's really nice when it's on, and it's chargeable, so no electrical cord. You just snap it on. If you want to lower the canopy, you have to take it off.

something like this will do a decent job but not perfect. I try to buy umbrellas with replaceable canopies, which I replace every two years or so, with a cleaning using this type product in the meantime. available at HD, lowes, et all

Thanks everyone for the input, decided to go with stripe. Just went to place my order as it's the last day of the current promo only to find out that the umbrella is excluded. So I cannot get 20% off plus I have to pay $25 for shipping. I'm so annoyed. Ballard Designs is intentionally misleading with their promotions and "exclusions". Either have sales and promos or don't. Enough with gimmicks. I think I will look elsewhere for an umbrella as I'm so irritated.

We do want a wood door on the inside. But my biggest concern is the ease of sliding open and closed. I have 16 grandkids and an outdoor pool. Because our current patio door is so hard to open and close, the grandkids broke the handle off by pulling on it. We did look at a Marvin door and I didn't think that is was very easy to slide it open. The salesman said that you don't want it to be too easy - like it needs to be tight. Is that correct?