The Farmhouse Patio Dining Set Built for Long Summer Nights
There’s a moment on a September evening in Colorado when the light goes gold behind the peaks, the wind quits for once, and the seven people at your table stay ten minutes longer than they meant to. This farmhouse patio dining set is built for that ten minutes. Real wood, a warm weather-ready stain, a full length bench on each side, and a retired ski runner tucked into the trestle where a plain crossbar would be. Colorado Ski Chairs handcrafts it to order in Manitou Springs, sized to your patio and finished to your taste, so it seats a crowd, lives outside, and looks like it grew there.
What Actually Comes With This Farmhouse Patio Dining Set
Let’s start with the plain description before the storytelling, because the specs are half of what people want to know. The pictured version of the Farmhouse Table & Benches Patio Set is a trestle table 40 inches wide, 80 inches long, and 32 inches tall, paired with two matching backless benches. Each bench is 70 inches wide, 12 inches deep, and 19 inches tall. That’s a full six and a half feet of table per side, room for four full adult place settings without anyone bumping elbows over the wine, and enough length that two more folks fit at the ends without dragging up mismatched chairs from the garage.
The base is a proper A-frame trestle, not a lightweight sawhorse that racks the first time somebody leans on it. The top is solid wood, joined and finished for the outdoors. The visible signature is the retro ski runner set into the trestle brace, right where a plain wood stretcher would go on any other farmhouse patio dining set. That single detail is why people who spend ten seconds looking at it usually stop and look again. It reads as a farmhouse first, a mountain piece second, and it means both.
Every one is built to order. Nothing here comes off a pallet or ships in a box from a warehouse in North Carolina. Colorado Ski Chairs builds the set in Manitou Springs, then delivers locally or ships nationwide. Turnaround runs about two to four weeks depending on how full the shop is that month. The listed price is $5,995 for the set as pictured. Any of that is on the table, no pun intended, and the shop will quote a modification on a call.
The Ski Runner in the Trestle, and Why It Is There
Colorado Ski Chairs has one rule that never gets broken. Every piece we build carries a nod to the mountain somewhere. Sometimes it is loud, like an Adirondack chair with the ski tips fanning up the back. Sometimes it is quiet, like a coffee table with a single snowboard as the top. On a farmhouse patio dining set, it is one retired ski runner set horizontally into the trestle, so it becomes the stretcher between the two A-frame legs. Load bearing is still handled by the wood joinery. The ski is the story.
The ski runner is a real one, retired from a real season of use. Not a new prop, not a photo laminate, not a sticker. It carries its original top-sheet graphics, the small dings and the honest patina it picked up on the mountain, and it gets sanded down only enough to sit flush and clean. That is on purpose. A ski that has been ridden has more character than any new one, and the whole point of the piece is that it tells a story before anybody sits down.
You can pick the runner. If you have a pair from the season your kid finally cleared a black diamond without stopping, we can build that pair in. If you don’t have one that matters, we pull from our own stock of vintage and retro skis. That stock is why the shop exists. Ski patrols, resort tune shops, families cleaning out garages, ski swaps at the end of March. All of them feed a wall of retired skis that end up as the visible details on furniture like this. Nothing gets thrown away. Everything gets a second run.
Sized to Your Patio, Not to a Warehouse Kit
The 40 by 80 top is a good default for most decks and most porches, but it is only a default. Colorado Ski Chairs modifies the dimensions for no extra charge as long as the math still works. If your deck can take a 96 inch table, we build a 96 inch table. If you have a narrow covered porch and 66 inches is the ceiling, we go 66. Same for the benches. The standard is a 70 inch bench at 19 inches high, and we can bring that height up for a taller pub-style set or trim it down to bring kids closer to the food.
There’s a taller pub-height version too, with matching dining chairs instead of benches, for anyone who prefers a bar-top feel. Same base concept, same trestle, same retired ski runner set in as the stretcher. Same $5,995 pricing on the standard build, quoted on a call when you want to combine sizes or swap in more than one ski.
What we won’t do is talk you into more table than your patio can actually hold. There’s a real cost to a set that dominates the space, and a real payoff to one that leaves a walkway on both sides. If you send a photo and a rough measurement, we’ll tell you what fits. That is a five minute conversation, and it saves us both from building the wrong piece.
Where a Farmhouse Patio Dining Set Like This Belongs
Some pieces we build settle happily in one setting. This one is a chameleon. The same trestle table with the same ski runner earns its keep in six or seven very different rooms, and the finish work carries it in all of them.
On a Colorado covered deck it is exactly what you’d hope for. Sunday brunch when the aspens turn, a lazy Wednesday dinner with the neighbors after a run into town, coffee for two on a snowy morning with a blanket over the bench. The benches slide right under the table when you want the deck back for a party, which sounds obvious until you have owned a patio set with chairs that never quite tuck.
In a mountain cabin, it is the dining table year round. Farmhouse trestle work looks like it belongs in a log-and-plank room, and the ski runner ties it to the reason you bought the cabin in the first place. Everybody who sits down asks about it once. Nobody forgets what you told them.
Backyard patios in Denver, Fort Collins, Colorado Springs and points east work just as well. The set is heavy enough to stay put in a gust, and the benches make it easy to seat a big group without hunting for extra chairs. Break out a set of citronella candles and a couple of pitchers and you have a summer evening that runs long by design.
Then there are the settings that surprised us. A brewery courtyard in Longmont picked up a set for its shaded patio. A wedding venue outside Boulder uses two sets for family style rehearsal dinners. A ski-in lodge in Steamboat put one on the porch of a slope-side cabin they rent out, and the review site is now full of people photographing the runner. The piece translates.
Sentimental Builds With Your Own Skis, Honestly Explained
Here is the honest version of the sentimental question, because it comes up on almost every call and the answer matters. A single farmhouse trestle can hold one retired ski runner as its stretcher, and a wider or longer table can hold two or three. That means one meaningful pair from your family, one from a friend, one from that season your dad taught you to ski parallel, can absolutely be built into this table without turning the whole thing into a scrapbook. It is a good use for a pair that belongs to somebody who is still around to eat off the table, and an even better use for a pair from somebody who isn’t.
Where the honesty gets important is on tables where the entire top or the whole base is covered in skis. Those exist, we build them, and they take more retired gear than most families own. A ski-covered tabletop in this size uses several pairs, easily. So the standard Colorado Ski Chairs arrangement is that you send the pair, or the two or three pairs, that mean something, and we match the rest from our own stock of vintage and retro skis. Your gear ends up in the visible spots, up front where people look. Ours fills the rest. Nobody has to go on a scavenger hunt for eight pairs of old skis to make a table happen.
What we will not do is quietly turn one pair of your skis into an entire tabletop and call it done. That claim shows up in ski furniture ads all over the internet and it isn’t real. If a piece needs more than you have, we say so, we tell you what we would pull from stock, and we send you a photo of the mockup before we cut anything.
For Restaurants, Bars, Lodges and Trade Shows
The farmhouse patio dining set does something unusual for a commercial buyer. It photographs beautifully, it seats a lot of people, and it doubles as a piece of atmosphere without asking to be the star of the room. That combination is why we hear from brewery owners, restaurateurs, wedding barns, ski lodges and, once or twice a year, trade show teams building a booth that has to work for a whole week on a convention center floor.
The restaurant and bar use case is the most straightforward one. A pair of these tables running down a covered patio seats twenty at a stretch, holds up to weather, and pulls its own weight as decor without needing extra art on the walls. Servers can clear a bench faster than four chairs. Reservations get easier. Trade show buyers usually want a set for a booth photo backdrop or a bar rail with a matching pair of stools. The ski runner in the stretcher gives a photo op that people actually stop for, and stopping is the whole game on a trade show floor.
For a business build, three things are worth flagging up front. First, we can pick a stain that matches an existing bar or existing millwork. Second, if you want your logo on the piece, that logo is never painted on. It goes on as a logo decal floated onto the stained wood so the mark holds its exact shape and color, with an aluminum or plastic applique available as an alternative on the front or the back. Painted logos look great for a month and then look tired. A properly applied decal or applique keeps the sharp edges you paid a designer to draw. Branded pricing is quoted on a call rather than published on a page, because a brewery courtyard and a corporate lobby are two very different jobs.
Third, for anything a public will touch every day for years, we recommend a heavier stain finish and a fresh recoat cycle a customer or their facilities team can handle in an afternoon. That schedule and the exact stain we would use are part of the quote. Nothing exotic, just paint-shop-honest.
How This Set Weathers a Colorado Season
Colorado weather does not respect furniture. Hail in July, thirty degree swings between morning and afternoon, a foot of April snow, sun that eats a cheap stain in one season. A farmhouse patio dining set that lives on a covered deck can shrug most of that off if it is built for it. This one is built for it.
The wood is finished with a high quality exterior oil paint and sealer, the same class of finish that goes on our Adirondack chairs and our outdoor benches. It is water and weatherproof for a covered deck, a porch, a patio under a pergola, or a garage-adjacent outdoor spot that at least gets it out of the worst summer downpour. If your deck has no cover at all, we still build the set for outdoor use, and we will tell you honestly that a cover for the coldest months adds years to the finish. We build for a long life outside, not for a season.
The ski runner in the trestle takes weather even better than the wood, because a modern ski was engineered from the top sheet down to survive winter after winter of exactly that. The runner will keep its color, the graphics will stay legible, and the small nicks in it will look right at home next to the ones your table picks up in the first year.
Warranty is straightforward. Colorado Ski Chairs stands behind our workmanship. If something structural fails from how we built it, we fix it. After the warranty window, ongoing repairs are quoted at materials cost only because we would rather see the piece live twenty years than see you replace it in five. That policy is why so many of the pieces in our shop have been in Colorado living rooms and patios for over a decade.
How Ordering and Customization Work
Ordering is a phone call and a few pictures, not a shopping cart maze. The shortest path is to call 303.775.7273 or send us a message from the product page and tell us what you want. Roughly what size, whether it lives on a covered deck or a fully exposed patio, whether you want the standard bench height or a taller pub build, whether you have skis you want built in or want us to match from stock, and any stain or color direction you already have in mind. We will price the exact build on the call, quote a lead time, and get you on the shop calendar.
Stain and ski changes are no-charge modifications, which is worth saying twice. You are not paying a premium to pick a stain that matches your existing outdoor furniture, and you are not paying extra to swap the runner for one with graphics that mean something to your family. Custom painting on the tabletop, if you want a mural or a scene rather than a plain stain, is billed at a flat $75 per hour and quoted on the call. Sentimental builds with your own gear get a mockup photo before we cut.
Delivery in Colorado is a local run for pieces going to the Front Range, the mountain corridor from Idaho Springs west, and Colorado Springs south. Anything outside the state ships nationwide. A trestle table and two benches ship as a knock-down set, cleanly crated, with instructions any adult can follow. Assembly is bolts and a wrench. Nobody has to sign up for a weekend of joinery.
Payment is either paid in full at order or split, and we take the same cards a normal shop takes. There is no application, no financing pitch, no upsell. If the price for a build is going to be very different from the listed $5,995, you will hear that on the first call, not after you have already made a deposit.
A Short List of Real Details That Matter
Because a farmhouse patio dining set gets bought once and lived with for a long time, a few concrete details deserve their own list, not another paragraph.
- Pictured dimensions: table 40 by 80 by 32 inches, benches 70 by 12 by 19 inches each, two benches included.
- Base: solid wood A-frame trestle with the retired ski runner set as the stretcher between the two legs.
- Finish: high quality exterior oil paint and sealer, water and weatherproof for covered outdoor use.
- Stain: any color you want, at no extra charge, matched to existing wood or picked from a swatch on the call.
- Ski runner: retired, real, from your own pair or from our shop stock, graphics kept intact.
- Customization: length, width, height and pub-style all quoted at no extra charge; taller pub build available with dining chairs instead of benches.
- Sentimental builds: your meaningful pair goes in the visible spots, we match the rest from stock, mockup photo before cutting.
- Branded builds: logo goes on as a decal or aluminum or plastic applique, never painted, priced on a call.
- Production: about two to four weeks in the shop in Manitou Springs.
- Shipping: local delivery in Colorado, crated ships nationwide.
- Warranty: workmanship covered, materials-cost-only repairs after the warranty window.
- Price as pictured: $5,995 for the set. Modifications and branded work quoted on the call.
- Phone: 303.775.7273.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many people does this farmhouse patio dining set seat?
The pictured 40 by 80 table with two 70 inch benches seats six comfortably, eight if you bring in a chair at each end, and up to ten if everyone gets friendly. We can build a longer top for a bigger crowd and a shorter one for a tighter porch, at no extra charge on the modification.
Can you build this set with my own old skis?
Yes. Send the pair or the two or three pairs that mean something and we will build them in as the visible details, matching the rest from our own stock of vintage and retro skis so the piece has the story you want without needing a garage full of retired gear. We send a mockup photo before any cutting starts.
Can we brand it for a bar, restaurant, ski lodge or trade show booth?
Yes, and this is a piece we build for commercial buyers pretty often. The logo goes on as a logo decal floated onto the stained wood so the mark holds its exact shape and color, with aluminum or plastic appliques available as alternatives on the front or the back. Branded pricing is quoted on a call because commercial builds vary a lot from job to job. Call 303.775.7273 to walk through your build.
How well does it hold up outside year round?
It is built for covered outdoor use with a high quality exterior oil paint and sealer, and the ski runner in the trestle handles weather even better than the wood does. A covered deck or a porch is ideal. Fully exposed to Colorado sun and snow year after year, a cover for the coldest months adds real life to the finish. Structural workmanship is covered by warranty, and repairs after that are quoted at materials cost only.
The Ten Minutes at the End of the Evening
Every table in a house pulls its own weight. A dining table settles arguments, plans trips, hides puzzles, holds Thanksgiving. A patio table does something a little different. It sets the tone for the ten minutes after dinner, when nobody wants to get up yet and the good stories finally start. A farmhouse patio dining set with a retired ski runner across the trestle sets that tone before anybody sits down. It looks like a place where the last hour of the day is supposed to happen, and that is the whole reason to buy one.
If you want to see the set in more detail, the product page has the photos, dimensions and the listed price. If you want to talk through a size, a stain, a sentimental build with your own skis, or a branded build for a business, call Colorado Ski Chairs at 303.775.7273 and we will price the exact set you have in mind. For more Colorado Ski Chairs pieces that live outdoors, browse the Benches category or the Custom Designs category. Everything in the shop is handbuilt in Manitou Springs and made to be lived with, not just looked at.
