• Overview:

We all decorate our homes with utmost care. We buy expensive novelty items to enhance the look and feel our living space. Some people focus all their creative efforts for indoor decoration and leave their outdoor surroundings like gardens and backyards unattended. To leave your front lawn, garden or backyard unattended can be considered as an ignorant behavior at best. Your home’s outdoor surroundings are just as important as its indoors. You can literally convert your garden in to a beautiful living space with the help of outdoor furniture, also known as garden furniture or patio furniture.

Garden furniture is specifically designed for use in outdoor environments. If you are thinking how furniture will survive in outdoor environment then stop worrying as garden furniture is made with weather resistant materials. Many people think that garden furniture is a relatively new concept; the truth is that garden furniture dates back to ancient roman times. Archeological excavations have found garden furniture in the gardens of ancient roman city Pompeii.

• Materials used in making of garden furniture:

The most common materials used for making garden furniture are plastic, wood, aluminum and wrought iron. People buy garden furniture of specific materials that suits their needs, taste and moods that they want to reflect in their garden. While wood gives a much more natural feeling, garden furniture made from aluminum is light and robust.

• Characteristics of different materials used in making of garden furniture.

Garden furniture made from wood has a disadvantage, it gets affected by exposure. Even though with periodic maintenance any damages due to exposure can be controlled but since wood is a natural material there is only so much you can do to protect it. Most of the wooden garden furniture is made from teak wood. The reason for using teak is that it is naturally resistant to fungal decay because of the presence of silica. It is also resistant to moisture. Since termites attack wood that has been affected by moisture, teak proves to be naturally resilient against termite attack. There are many products available in the market that are targeted at increasing the lifespan of wooden furniture made from teak wood. Another advantage of using teak is that it doesn’t catch fire easily.

A widely used alternative to wood for making garden furniture is aluminum. Aluminum is more robust and light in weight as compared to wood. However it is also equally prone to exposure once its protective covering wears off and ends up corroded.

In order to avoid the drawbacks of wood and aluminum some people go for plastic furniture. But plastic doesn’t provide the warm and natural feel of wood. Even though it is very light, even lighter than aluminum garden furniture but then it is also very brittle. A significant advantage of plastic garden furniture is that they can be left in the outdoors for any duration of time. As plastic is non-biodegradable, it is resilient to almost all of the extremities of weather. As plastic is easily moldable, you can find plastic garden furniture in a variety of shapes and sizes. You can even buy plastic garden furniture that has wooden polish and finish for more naturally appealing look.

Featured images:

•  License: Creative Commons image source

Andrew Colin runs a business dealing in garden furniture. He also runs a blog that focuses on garden furniture designs, maintenance, upcoming trends and offers.