For those of you like me, who have a set of the old plastic patio furniture and not something fancy, here are a few tricks to spruce it up , for little cost. I think I’ve had my patio furniture for over 10 years now, and it has withstood the test of time. It gets left outside on sizzling summer days, as well as freezing cold winter ones, and everything in between. It is still very sturdy and in great shape, aside for that nasty dirty looking grime that accumulates, and refuses to wash off with a nice blast from the hose. At first I thought the stuff would never come off, as I have tried many times simply washing the table and chairs with hot soapy water, and all it did was remove surface dirt.
Then when my husband decided to throw a large outdoor barbeque for friends and neighbors last month, I didn’t want anyone outside of the immediate family seeing how grimy my patio furniture looked. Also, after years of withstanding the elements, my patio umbrella finally gave up and deteriorated and tore to the point of no return. So here I am , with a party mere weeks away, stuck with my decade old patio furniture and umbrella that just went out with the garbage man.
It’s not like I had several hundred dollars to spare to go replace everything, so I decided to recruit my teenage son, and we set out to accomplish mission impossible, which actually turned out to be quite possible! With a bucket full of hot soapy water, and the addition of some stainless steel scouring pads (not S.O.S. types with soap in them, just plain stainless steel), we set off on our mission. We sprayed them all (chairs and table) vigorously with the hose, then set off to work. We scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed and finally the coating of gunk was coming off! Much to my surprise, this time, they actually came clean. We scrubbed them all over several times, and worked on the toughest, most stubborn areas with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Then we hosed them off again, and set them on the deck to dry off in the sun. It was amazing, as they were actually white once again!
So, now we’re all nice and clean and looking good, but something is missing, for instance, a patio umbrella, and perhaps a tablecloth. It used to be you could find decent patio umbrellas in the $20 range, nothing fancy, the manual types, but that was not the case this year. The only umbrellas I could find were priced from the upper $40 range to well over $200. Not what I was searching for. I did, however, manage to find a tablecloth, but not the type I was looking for. It also seemed that no retailer had the type of round “umbrella” tablecloths, with the hole and a zipper feature, with the elasticized edge that fits securely around the table. But I did manage to find one at KMart, after the Fourth of July, priced 50% the regularly marked price of $4.99. I was expecting to pay full price, thinking that was a steal, but when it rang up at $2.49, that was even better! So now, I at least have a patio tablecloth, though not the right type. I found a solution to make it work so that it would not always be blowing up off the table. I used small binder type clips and fastened them securely at five points spaced out evenly around the table, and it looks fine and works great.
Now, the barbeque is fast approaching and I still cannot find an umbrella that I can afford…until I had the idea to look at one last place , Garden Ridge. Not only were the fancier umbrellas priced at or under $40, they had other even less expensive options. I was able to locate what they referred to as a Market Umbrella, for only $9.99. You can check out their online site to see if there is a store near you, it’s gardenridge.com. Granted, this umbrellas is not as sturdy as my previous one, but it serves the purpose, and looks nice. Unlike my old umbrellas, this one has a wooden pole and wooden spokes, so it is definitely wise to put it down after use to keep it more stable and less prone to damage from wind and storms. Also, its’s super easy to take apart and place back in the storage bag that it came in. I had left the lower half of my old umbrella still in the cast iron umbrella base, or else my plastic table would have blown away, and I was able to simply place the wooden market umbrella directly into the already existing piece of the old umbrella, which really gave it added support. Keep this in mind if you choose an umbrella with the wood as opposed to metal. This also allows you to use the market type umbrella in your pre-existing umbrella base.
So, altogether, I did this little fix up with soap, water, a scouring pad, some help from my son, and all for the low cost of $12.48 before tax! Quite a simple fix and it looks SO much better, just in time for company. Try these little tricks for an easy spruce up before you toss out that old plastic furniture, you just might decide to keep it after all!
