Picnic Tables Seem Pretty Expensive to Me

I've been thinking for several years that I'd like to have one. We have a couple of crepe myrtle trees in the front yard, and between them would be a perfect spot.

My main reason: This is Florida. For most of the year -- pretty much all of it except for a few scattered sub-freezing-temperature days -- I could work outside at a picnic table, especially if it included an umbrella. Just set up my laptop and travel monitor instead of using my desktop PC.

I like being outdoors. If you go far enough back on this blog, you'll find my account of sleeping outdoors every day for several months, giving myself one "inside night" per month. Lowest temperature sleeping in a tent: Six below zero Fahrenheit. Highest I never kept track of, but probably high 90s, maybe over 100.

But damn. Even a rickety folding picnic table would set me back a couple hundred dollars.

I could buy a fiberglass or metal frame set for one for $100-$120, but I'd spent about as much on the lumber to put it together.

I could probably build one from scratch for $150 or so given current lumber prices. But even that seems like more than I want to spend.

I'm hoping I'll come across a reasonably sturdy  table/umbrella setup at a yard sale, but that hasn't happened yet.

Or I may start wandering around the house and yard and come up with some kind of rigged abomination. I do like doing that sort of thing, too, although I'm not sure the neighbors would want to see whatever it is sitting in the front yard.