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Eating outdoors is so often a spontaneous thing. But oh what a turn-off to arrive in the garden laden with a tray of delicious food only to find that the table is as dirty as garden shoes. Exposure to the elements and, it must be said, what passing birds drop down on it, means cleaning garden furniture is a frequent task. Follow the tips in the following section, according to the surface of your tables and seating.
Protecting wood
Buying — and remembering to use — waterproof furniture covers for your wooden furniture keeps tables and chairs safe from their biggest danger — extreme wet. You're unlikely to want to shield them from their secondary attacker, however — the sun! On days that the sun's in full glory, you no doubt want to be out enjoying it. These tips help you to do just that for longer.
- Protect wood furniture at the start of each season with a sealant that's appropriate to its composition and style. For example, use teak-oil for hardwood chairs and preservative for a budget softwood bench.
Take care to avoid varnishing on top of screw fittings. The natural shrinkage and swelling of wood according to the weather mean you may have to regularly tighten these. If they're gummed up with varnish, it gets tricky.
- Avoid standing wood legs directly on grass. The moisture from the ground may rot untreated wood over time. If your garden is such that you truly can't avoid this, at least give wood legs some extra protection by standing table and chair legs in saucers of wood preservative for several hours, so that as much solution as possible gets soaked into the wood.
- In cleaning up wet spills, be sure to dry as well as wipe. Unless it's a real scorcher of a day, never assume that the sun will do it. The wood may take all day to dry out, and in that time, airborne dirt such as pollen may have formed an invisible yet sticky film on your table.
Every two weeks, wipe down tables and chairs with a cloth, wrung out from a solution of soapy wood cleaner. Use the cleaner straight on any particularly stubborn stains. Dry thoroughly, with a fresh cloth.
Get into the good habit of wiping tables and chairs with a dry cloth every time you go to use them. This gets off pollen or fine strands of grass that have found their way to your furniture and dried on rather than got blown away.
Treating plastic resin furniture well
Resin furniture doesn't cost much, so it often simply sits in the garden, taking all that the weather and the trees and bushes and the animals and insects throw and blow its way. But with just a little care, that plastic can outlive pricier wood furniture. Unlike wood, plastic doesn't rot or warp. Unlike metal, it doesn't rust.
Resin does, however, fade, and excessive heat can make some plastics become brittle. This brittleness can be accelerated by abrasive cleaners because tiny, gritty bits in the cleaner work against the plastic to turn it from a smooth to a slightly rough surface. To prevent this, wash down plastic tables and chairs with a mild all-purpose cleaner — the same one you use for vinyl floors indoors or for washing down walls.
When white plastic ages, it can yellow. If your furniture gets to this stage, you override the abrasives ban and use a mildly abrasive cleaner. An abrasive cleaner also helps to keep at bay the black grime that gets embedded in the rough edges of the plastic. Soaking such a stain in a strong bleach solution — 2-1/2 tablespoons to 1 gallon of water — also helps whiten it but gives no guarantee of uniform results. If you can, position the chair so that the bleach solution covers an even area. Rinse the solution off after 30 minutes.
A last resort to restoring whiteness to discolored garden furniture is spray paint. Look for a specialist paint to match the color of your furniture. Test a small area first, then spray the entire front of the affected chair.
Pumping iron
Most metal furniture usually has a protective finish. So, essentially, you're simply washing a hard-wearing, synthetic top-coat, and all you need is to wash it with a cloth that's been dipped in and wrung out from a soapy washing-up liquid solution.
Problems start only when this coating begins to wear away, which should be a good few years according to the quality of the furniture. However, strong acids — in particular bird droppings — can eat through weak spots in the finish. So make a point of getting these off with a cleaning wipe whenever you spot them. If the coating has worn away, paint over it again, with a clear metal varnish.
Cast or wrought iron is mostly used for gates and rails, though you may come across benches made from this. Because water causes iron to rust, outdoor furniture is always painted with either an outdoor paint or a clear protective varnish.
At the start and end of summer, check the condition of the varnish carefully. If the coating has a bubbled appearance or rust damage is evident, get out sandpaper and sand the area carefully before re-applying paint or varnish. Then, regularly through the season, simply wipe down with a cloth wrung from a soapy solution of washing-up liquid, and dry very thoroughly.
Cleaning Outdoor Furniture
Adapted With Permission From:
Cleaning & Stain Removal for Dummies
Cleaning & Stain Removal for Dummies. Copyright © 2004 & Trademark by Wiley Publishing. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc. For Dummies is a trademark or registered trademark of Wiley Publishing, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Used by permission.
From Dummies.com. Dummies.com is owned and operated by Wiley Publishing, Inc. Copyright © 2005 Wiley Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.
