It’s been a really great experience redesigning CushionsAndUmbrellas.com from the ground up.   It was time for us to take a look at what we wanted to accomplish with our site and how we wanted to improve our customers experience.  I think on of the achieved some of our most important goals.

1. Completely redesigned the site using the Magento E-commerce engine.  A great choice and a great set tools for our customers.  Now we have a much simpler checkout and sign up process, and we now accept PayPal and are working on accepting Google Checkout soon.
2. Our shopping guides, help and answers (FAQ) and this blog with our own customization of the Wordpress using the Thesis Theme.
3. Expanded our fabric offering.  We now carry 60 outdoor fabrics for cushions and 40 Sunbrella fabrics for our patio umbrellas.

We hope you enjoy the new design and a new era for CushionsAndUmbrellas.

Jesse Brotham from Las Vegas sent this in to us.

I have to say that I’m really impressed with the quality and workmanship of your outdoor umbrellas and cushions.  Beginning with your umbrella choices, I’ve never seen any online shop offer the different covers that you do.  My wife and I chose the 9′ wood patio umbrella in Natural with the middle accent in Dolce Mango.  What a beautiful combination it came out to be.  We added jockey red wood bench cushions, and couldn’t be happier with our decor.  Kathie on your staff was very helpful, she actually talked us through our outdoor decor, and helped us make the right decision.  As soon as we received our products, my wife and I put them up.  What a change!  Kathie was right, the right patio umbrella becomes a centerpiece in the patio.   My wife feels like the quintessential homemaker.  Thank you so much!

And thank yo for those kind words.

As reported in the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission

The Home Depot is recalling some large patio umbrellas because they may tip over and strike consumers, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said Thursday.

According to the CPSC, the patio umbrella and its pole could tip over and strike consumers if the umbrella’s collar or sleeve is not removed prior to closing the umbrella, posing a risk of impact injury to consumers. Home Depot received one report of a recalled patio umbrella tipping over and breaking, but no injuries were reported.

For more information, contact The Home Depot at (866) 403-5504. Home Depot has a dozen Milwaukee-area locations.

You can read the entire story here: http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2009/05/25/daily52.html

We want to asure all of our customers that our patio umbrellas have been thouroughly tested and do not pose this threat.   The offset patio umbrellas that are concerned where ill designed for their weight.  Our offsets have been top balanced for this purpose

The woman behind Creative Home Expressions is none other than Kathy Passarette, expert interior designer, home staging, redesigner and color consultant extraordinaire.  Her articles and tips have appeared in Newsday,  Newday’s How To Guide, New York, Resident Magazine, the Gwinnett Daily Post, the Denver Post and the Miami Herald.  She has given us a plethora of tips she wanted to share with our customers, and this would be the first in tips we will spotlight.  You can catch up on Kathy at the Creative Home Expressions Blog.

• Lighting – garden lights, candles or a mix of the two can give your yard a warm glow and extend your daytime enjoyment into the night.  With the variety of lighting options from easy to install light kits to solar lighting, you can create ambiance in your own back yard.  Candles can be used from floating tea lights to pillar, there are numerous ways to incorporate them into your décor.  There are many decorative candle holders that fit in with themed décor or blend in with your landscape.
• Outdoor fireplaces – not only extend the hours you can spend outside, but can also extend your season outdoors.  There are many different styles to choose from; you can even build your own fire pit.
• Fabric – outdoor fabrics have come a long way over the years offering a lot more than the usual awning stripe.  You can use these fabrics for pillows, to cover cushions, make tablecloths or even be used as outdoor curtains.
• Furniture – your outdoor rooms are a great place to use found furniture pieces.  They can easily be freshened up with some spray paint.  Metal baker’s racks made great vertical storage and also help break up all the horizontal surfaces.  Don’t be afraid to bring pieces from the inside out for the day – just bring them back in at night.
• Pillows – pillows add softness to your chairs and benches.  How inviting a cushioned chair looks for reading a book or just sitting quietly.
• Outdoor area rugs.  Define the seating areas, just like they do inside your home.

Today, we’ve got another tip from an awesome design and decor expert, the Nester!  I absolutely love her motto “It doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful” and reflects why she’s such a great source.

Lighting is the finishing touch in an outdoor room that transforms an every day space into an inviting retreat.  We all know the sun will light up the outdoors in the day but at night when the sun goes down, you’ll want to include some outdoor lighting.  There are so many choices, torches, outdoor chandeliers or candeliers, paper lanterns, a string of lights draped around the umbrella over the patio table, candles or even a fire pit.  Any of these light sources will add to the ambiance of your outdoor room and your neighbors will long to be invited over for a relaxing evening.

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