I don't know of an Ethan Allen outlet but I do know that every so often there is a warehouse sale of Ethan Allen stuff in Elizabeth. They obviously advertise in the local NJ papers but they may also advertise in the NY Times NJ section that is included in the Sunday Times. Maybe their corporate office and store personnel can give you info on how often and when they expect to do the next one.

I have a Nichols and Stone kitchen table...48" with wood top and iron base and love it. I originally had a Nichols and Stone glass top table with a pineapple type iron base and it was so wobbly, they ended up replacing it for me...which tells me they really stand behind what they sell. I'd definately recommend them.

thanks pretty much what I thought I just always hate when I see people "improve" furniture just to ruin it. Somewhat contradictory I always thought my parents Ethan Allen dining table - which came with painted legs new - farmhouse style - was the one not authentic thing in their house - (pretty much everything else was a real antique weather it came from a shop in vermont, a relatives basement or a neighbors trash on bulk day LOL) and now I have misgiving on altering an older reproduction. Meh I just have to go at it. I remember they wanted a real farm table but the EA one just was more practical with leaves and stuff. Need to make things work for my life and not worry about it.

I still have the aluminum patio furniture that I bought 17 yrs ago and it's held up extremely well. During strong winds the chairs are light enough to blow around the patio but they've never lifted off into orbit! When I know there's going to be a wind storm sometimes I'll push them over into a corner where they will be more protected, just so they don't bang into other things. Usually those types of storms are in the winter so if you are really worried about individual chairs moving just buy a patio cover that is large enough for the table and all the chairs around it. Last year I bought a pair of wrought iron chairs from Smith & Hawkins, they've got a black finish on them to protect the iron. S&H sells a protective cream for this type of furniture, it's expensive but if it keeps the chairs from rusting it will be worth it. As you know we get our rain in the winter and ours is a dry climate so I doubt wrought iron chairs are going to rust like they might in a more humid climate. I use Koveroos covers for all my outdoor furniture and when I know rain is coming I just throw it over them and remove when the sun is shining again. I haven't had these chairs long enough to know if they're going to rust or not but with these precautions I'm taking I'm pretty confident they'll hold up for many years. And if they do rust, well there are products to stop that from spreading. This may sound like a lot of maintenance but they're still a lot easier to keep clean than the white vinyl on my aluminum chairs. My neighbor bought a complete set of patio furniture from OSH a couple years ago, including a gazebo-like tent for overhead. I couldn't believe all that cost her only a couple hundred dollars. The problem with buying patio furniture from discount stores or hardware stores is the cushions. Better to find a set that doesn't require cushions because that's what desintegrates first. The original cushions that came with my set all faded very badly. To replace them would have cost a fortune but I know how to sew so I ordered a bolt of Sunbrella fabric from Calico Corners and made new ones. Unless the fabric says "Sunbrella" you're going to end up with faded fabric. Furniture sold by K-Mart,etc is not going to have Sunbrella fabric on it. In that case, chose a cushion that is light in color and definitely no prints. It's one thing to sew new cushions it's another when you have an unbrella that is also fading. Even though all the red & green color on our expensive Brown&Jordan unbrella had faded to a disgusting yellow I had no idea how to replace it so that one we pitched and I bought a new unbrella, this time in a solid color and using Sunbrella fabric.