Moving the Umbrella to the Deck Railing

I live in a 3-story townhouse with a deck/porch at ground level (lower deck) and a deck on the second story (upper deck). The lower deck is covered by the upper deck, they face west, so we get lots of afternoon sun on the upper deck. They are about 6' deep and 20' wide.


When Chris first moved in he had a couple of lawn chairs and decided to get an umbrella. Since I moved in we've added a table and a few planters. It got to the point where space was tight. Something I saw online made me wonder if we could attach the umbrella to the railing and get rid of the umbrella stand.


I mentioned it to Chris and he came up with a great idea that was inexpensive and easy to install.

He got some pvc pipe, attached it to the outside of the railing post and strapped it with metal pipe strap.

He used some wood blocks as spacers to line up the pvc pipe with the post cap. The pipe sits on the edge of the deck and Chris placed a smaller diameter pipe inside to get the umbrella to the height we wanted and leave it open to drain.

Since there are two posts on our deck railing, Chris attached pvc pipe to both so we could move the umbrella from one to the other. He later added a tiki light to the empty spot.

So far we really like this set up (we'd like it even more if it would stop raining). We moved the table next to the railing, rather than up against the house. We have more space to move around without the umbrella stand in the way. We can easily add a couple more chairs if we have guests.  If you have a deck this is a way to create some more space. I also like it because it is an option that used vertical space.