Revive outdoor furniture

Sometimes a nice set of wooden furniture gets a rough treatment outdoors. Left alone in the elements it can start to look pretty shabby. But the story doesn't have there. It's easy to give wooden furniture a new life and it's not hard to do.


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Step 1 Starting with furniture

My coworker Lee had some furniture on his back deck that had been forgotten for too long. I can't blame him, he's a busy guy with a couple of kids, but his outdoor living room was starting to look like a mess. He did try to fix up one of the chairs on his own, but it came out... wrong. It was time for some intervention.

Comments

[pfred2]

That outside furniture didn't look bad to me before you started. Bad is when you go to sit down and it breaks out from under you! The bench in the background of this picture was that bad:

http://i.imgur.com/lt6hi.jpg

I reslatted it and saved the back with this product called Minwax Wood Hardener. there are other wood hardening products out there but the Minwax stuff is the only thing I've any experience with. It can turn any dry rotted wood into iron.

The little benches in the foreground of that picture are looking pretty bad too but they'll look that way for years I'm sure.

[dimtick]

those pieces are teak. teak has a lot of oil in it naturally which is why it stands up so well to outside use but also means you want to be careful when you refinish.
teak turns gray as it ages. when you sand, you want to get off all the gray and get back to the natural tan wood underneath. sand by hand to get into all the slots where the sander cant reach. stain is absorbed better by the bare wood than the gray so areas that aren't sanded will will show. take your time and do this right. make sure to whipe the piece down with a tack cloth to get off all the sanding dust.
I prefer teak oil instead of stain but which ever you choose you should go over with some teak sealer.
you really should do the stain and sealer first before doign the stencil.

[angelabchua]

Wow, they look great. Much easier than busting out the old wood stain in a can with a brush!

[Ninzerbean]

One time while I was pressure washing my patio I accidentally passed the water over a chair - wow - it was like instant sanding. It looked brand new. I ended up doing all the furniture, then I started on the tree trunks. It is way easier than sanding. These Chairs look amazing Fungus.

[nanosec12]

I know it's outdoor furniture, but after your stain is dry you can add a couple of thin coats of clear to help seal it, and make it last longer as well.

another idea for the cleaning - use a pressure washer to liven up the wood. but be careful not to get too close or the pressure washer can damage the wood. It would be very similar to the way you refurbish a wooden deck.

Nice set of instructions.