Actually, there’s no need to do anything fancy or hard work for teak outdoor furniture care and cleaning, teak is tougher than you think. You can use ordinary soap and a brush to clean them and they would be totally fine. You can also just leave it outside exposed to the element and teak wood will still be okay.
However…they will change color and have a rough surface if we treated teak outdoor furniture that way. Especially when we buy unfinished products, and also, outdoor furniture is not only about wood, there’s hardware, fittings, cushions, etc that also needs to be maintained. So what is the best thing to do for teak outdoor furniture care? Let’s break it down a Lil bit here :
Wood Care
Teak is a very strong wood, it has a dense and oily grain that makes it water repellent. So you can leave it outside in pouring rain and covered in snow and teak will keep strong and undamaged. However teak will turn to gray patina if not treated with additional finishes. No matter what we do it still going to turn gray.
To make teak wood back to its original color or restore teak outdoor furniture, like brand new out of the box, here’s step by step to make it happens:
- Take off the hardware if there’s any, just to make the cleaning process easier.
- Wash it thoroughly with water, soap, and the soft brush you usually used to brush clothes or fabrics. Brush it going with grain directions.
- Rinse it out and make sure no dirt or remaining stains that can come from food or spilled drinks.
- Wipe it dry with a paper towel or chamois, and let it air-dried or sundry if there’s any.
- From this stage, the looks of the teak wood would likely be grayish, you can apply teak oil if you want a natural rustic look or sand it down to get a new teak wood look.
- If you decide to sand it, start with 180 grit paper then gradually move up to 240 grit and finish it off with 1000 grit for a silky smooth result.
- Apply coatings of your desire, teak oil, linseed oil, and beeswax, are a few of the natural coatings you can apply for yourself. We are NOT suggesting using chemical furniture finish material for outdoor. You’re done!
Hardware Care
Hardware used on patio furniture is made of brass, galvanized steel, and stainless steel. for stainless steel maybe we can forget about it because they are literally indestructible. But brass and galvanized steel are needed proper maintenance to prolong their usability.
So how to properly maintain brass? brass is a rust-resistant alloy strong enough to last hundreds of years. However, it oxidized really quickly and turned from shiny gold to red-brown color in a matter of days.
It gets worse in the marine environment, you what salt does to the metal right? The only way to prevent this is by adding a polyurethane clear coat. But…this costs money and is labor-intensive, polyurethane is also a highly toxic material. So we do not suggest for you do it by yourself.
The easy way to maintain the beauty of brass is to clean it every season with good quality metal polish. in Indonesia, we have brasso…
For galvanized steel, we can’t do too much to prevent rust. As soon as the galvanized layer is broken by oxidation, the rust will be spreading all over the surface in a matter of weeks. To prevent this to happen too quickly, clean it regularly with a clean cloth which been damped with WD 40 or other similar products.
FYI, our furniture product hardware is already coated with a polyurethane finish, so they will last longer compare to “bare metal”, but it is not last forever, especially in a marine environment, you still have to do the maintenance.
Teak Outdoor Furniture Care of Cushion
Teak outdoor furniture care of cushions really depends on the brand and material used. There’s a brand that doesn’t even care about the weather, it stands against cold and hot weather like nothing. But there’s also a brand that required detailed maintenance to get the most out of it. But let’s take it in between, how to maintain a “normal” cushion for outdoor furniture?
SImple actually, wash it when it’s dirty and store it while not in use. That’s it really…treat your cushion like your own clothes and everything would last for a long long time.
As you can see, teak outdoor furniture care is not that difficult really. All you need is a simple household tool and free time, now if you don’t have any free time, you can always contact your nearest furniture specialist to do the work.
That’s it for now, thank you for being here and we’ll see you in another article. see ya…
