Easy Outdoor Entertaining

A few nights ago a friend joined us for dinner and as much as I love easy, I also love entertaining, so I try to combine the two as often as possible!

Hubs made us a delicious, simple dinner of grilled chicken, tomato and cucumber salad (from our garden!) and sautéed pattypan squash (also from our garden!). Our guest brought dessert, which left only an appetizer for me to prepare.

We tend to be cheese hogs...anytime we are out and find a tasty looking cheese we pick it up. Hubs also has a growing passion for canning, so we have fresh-made pickles from our own garden goodies in the fridge. Add a few slices of salami, crackers and some salted nuts and we had ourselves a fancy looking cheese flight in minutes.

 After dinner we were enjoying our deck and the glorious summer weather. After a few minutes, we realized it would have been a beautiful night to eat outdoors but we still had no table!

What I'm about to tell you may cause your heart to flutter with jealousy...but our Friday nights are typically spent at Costco, which is conveniently across the street from IKEA.

We had acquired a deck umbrella from Garden Ridge for a steal ($39.99 + $29.99 for the base) and some chairs from Hubs' parents.

With a bench built-in on our deck, we knew the right sized rectangle table would allow us to create an efficient eating and entertaining area on our beautiful deck.

Friday night we found our table at IKEA and Saturday morning Hubs went back sans baby and picked it up. They were sold out of the model we liked AND it was discontinued, so this bitchin' new table came to us for a sparkling $125 since it was the floor model (orig. $189).

For less than $200, meet our new outdoor entertaining space :)

Hubs may never let me paint our dining room table the way I want, but at least the outdoor table is white!!

Have you scored any big discounts on decor items lately?