I would love to have vintage black wrought iron, but had looked for a year or so, and never found a single piece. In the meantime, we needed something to sit on! I bought 4 chairs, a bench, and 2 side tables from Lowes for less than $700. We've only had them a few months, but we love the set! They're cast aluminum, very comfortable, and sturdy. My criteria was similar to yours, but since some of the pieces would be totally exposed to the elements, I didn't want any steel construction at all. I also wanted them to comfortable without any cushions, since I knew it would be futile to put them on the pieces that sit in the sun and rain. I'd like to get at least some pillows for the pieces on the covered porch, but it's more for color than comfort.

I'm guessing if it was made for outdoors that they've tested it for that environment and would warn you otherwise. Of course, you can't count of that. My mom has a plastic tablecloth for her dining room table and the underlining is a thick flannel type material. It's used under a regular tablecloth, but its purpose is so you can set hot casseroles, etc. on it without damaging wood. Wonder if something like that would work in conjunction with normal patio table cover? Just to help isulate it? I agree you may want to leave an air gap. Just throwing that out there....

In front of our house we have about 7" of ice and the perch are biting nicely. We love "poor man's shrimp", perch fillets rolled in panko and deep fried, served with cocktail sauce. And the commute, well, I have a Subaru with bad ass studded snows and a high speed internet connection for the days I can't make it to the Syracuse and DH is a SAHD, so he can pick and choose his trips to town. Here's a few more pics for your DH, and tell him we love to make Ithaca a day trip, small city hippie culture and lunch at the Moosewood, a great cabin fever cure when we've had enough playing in the snow. Summer: Winter, DD and our neighbor: sandyponder

Yikes! Having a numb finger for two weeks would freak me out. Glad it's gone! I will definitely get one of those doodads. Did you spray primer on it first? I remember now, we had beautiful cool Spring days and that's when I was working in the flowerbeds so much, and suddenly it got hot with high humidity and stayed that way until this week. I melt in humidity. I love the green you used, but I'm thinking it would be too dark for that corner of the porch. I'll probably look for ideas online.