Garden furniture

[BrilliantBetty]

I feel like there is pressure this year to have a beautiful looking garden with comfortable & stylish garden furniture.

All the sets seem to have enormous cushions! Where do people store these? I don't really want to have to house all this inside for the majority of the year. I haven't got the space.

How is your garden looking? Have you got nice garden furniture? Excessive cushions?!

Ours are in cushion bags in the garage, hung on the wall.

We have new patio and a nice patio table and chairs/parasol, but TBH the garden itself isn't looking great. The lawn is a bog and the borders need attention.

Something like this would do the job too.

Here

I have two cushion bunkers - a huge one and a smaller one.

I find this a massive pain in the arse each summer to be honest. We have a corner sofa with massive cushions plus a dining set where each chair has two cushion pads (for your back and bottom if you see what I mean!). They can't stay out in the rain, so each time there's a shower they all get hurriedly brought in and dumped in the house, where they're in the way (they take up half the room!) until it's dry outside. Plus each night in summer there's checking of the weather app to see if there'll be rain Last year we spent a few hundred quid on two MASSIVE rattan covered storage boxes with supposedly water proof insides which have stored the cushions all winter. I'm scared to open them to be honest as disaster may await me!!!

Watching with interest. We’ve just moved to a house with a proper garden and all the patio furniture sets are over £1k, which seems bonkers!

Anyone got a decent weatherproof chair and tables for a normal amount of money?

How is your garden looking

A bit tired and overgrown, but I don't particularly care. I just want warm and dry weather.

Have you got nice garden furniture

It's OK, but 15 years old and not being treated well so is starting to fall apart. Luckily they still sell the exact same set in IKea, so we're going to replace some bits soon, before it all sells out again.

Excessive cushions

No, never seen the need. Ditto for inside the house. Never understood the obsession with cushions or felt 'the pressure' for that matter.

I just do what suits me. I spent most of last year's hot weather/lockdown period sat in the garden on one of these for £40 from Ikea. It's very comfortable, folds flat for storage, and no cushions required.

No, never seen the need. Ditto for inside the house. Never understood the obsession with cushions or felt 'the pressure' for that matter.

My patio set is wooden and very hard on your bum without the cushions when sitting to eat. So not obsessed but kind of needed.

@LividLiving yes it's come as a shock to me too! We've just moved in to our 'forever' family home. My first property was mostly furnished with second hand / my parents' cast offs, and actually spending hundreds on outdoor furniture is... .
Also spending £130 on a storage box. But I do want the garden to be very nice though! I'm torn!

@BarbaraofSeville that chair does look nice. Comfortable and no cushions!?

I plan on getting a furniture cover for my (which I havent bought yet) rattan sofa set.

I am conflicted. I love my patio set but I have to store the cushions/collapse the chairs and cover it every night so it's all a bit of an effort setting up/putting away each day. But that's the British weather for you, sometimes weeks of the summer go by without being able to use it.

In the winter it's all collapsed and stored under a cover.

[quote BrilliantBetty]@BarbaraofSeville that chair does look nice. Comfortable and no cushions!? [/quote]
The strings mould to your arse.

Our dining set is from the Applaro range. Never seen the need for cushions, but you could get some if you wanted to.

We've left it out in the rain for over a decade since the cover blew away in a storm and never bothered to stain it and it's only this last year or two that it's started to fall apart. It's not posh, but it's not £1k+ either.

We brought an ottoman bed for the spare bedroom and put the cushions in it through the winter.

Our old set we put in the garage and they went musty really quickly.

Ikea also do a storage box for your cushions for £35 here and fully waterproof. In winter I will be stashing them in vacuum bags in the loft.

We are buying two of the storage boxes if needed to stash behind the shed when we buy our furniture this summer. I cannot wait. It also goes with Dh's birthday present which was an Ooni Pizza Oven. Bring on the sunshine.

We got a storage box for £40 from Amazon, it's brilliant.

We also got a really stylish, comfortable dining set from.Sue Ryder for £200, because it has a couple of chips in it that you can't even see. The set is about £800 new. Highly recommended!

We bought this

www.garden4less.co.uk/product/pl/60783088%2FNP?partner=fr&gclid=Cj0KCQjwi7yCBhDJARIsAMWFScM4PqRuTRy_G6ELiLu0NEM4Gq7Ou6rcxBbzhPmkEDXTT-w53gHNkPIaAqXrEALw_wcB

We also bought this which can't be seen from the patio, we then stick the cushions in black sacks in the attic over winter.

www.wayfair.co.uk/Lifetime--HeavyDuty-439.11-L-Resin-Storage-Box-60089-L3748-K~LIIE1061.html?refid=CJUK5370367&device=c&ptid=594257682904&targetid=pla-594257682904&network=g&ireid=92852226&device=c&gclid=Cj0KCQjwi7yCBhDJARIsAMWFScODhzYkAno8naFyBaPQtW2G8uYpHAZ9CynjbEMjdaRCsFV_vXOKpQUaAtI_EALw_wcB&cjevent=380b742d857b11eb83b302ba0a18050f&PID=100045542

Then the F*ck it Goblins got hold of my credit card and we bought this for my birthday.

www.garden4less.co.uk/product/Hartman-amalfi-ice-bucket-table-bronze

I had just recovered from tonsil cancer, and we spent the money out of the life is too short savings fund. We have had five years of solid use out of it.

We get the sun from sun up, to sun down, it rises at the end of the garden and travels around and sets across the road so we have sun for nearly twelve hours.

I'm also wondering if the cushions covers have to be washed frequently? Can imagine people get sweaty in the heat and sit on the cushions and the sweat sinks it, like on a sun lounger.

I actually don't know if all this faff is worth it.

Keep ours in a storage box think it was about £89 and put them in large plastic bags as well
Leave on if weathers dry and yes it is a pain putting away most nights but its nice to have comfortable seats

My cushions are shower proof so just give them a wipe if something spills etc
I have never washed them
I don't wash my sofa that often and it gets more use than the outside cushions
I have given a wipe over at most if looked gross would just wash outside and hang to dry

We bought 2 steamer chairs last year and they are lovely. I hate eating outdoors so we don't have a dining set.

If someone was particularly sweaty I would maybe give them a towel to
Sit or lie on

It is absolutely baffling to me how bloody expensive garden furniture is. Just why???

Interested to hear how waterproof those waterproof bins are. I half expect them to make the contents mouldy after a while

Garden is looking a bit messy, but once the buds come out and the lawn has been mown it’ll be fine. Won’t win Chelsea Flower Show but it’ll be nice enough for bbqs, kids play etc. This time of year it always looks scraggly. I’ve got trays of various tiny seedlings starting inside so hopefully in a few weeks the veg patch will be on track too.

We have a few folding fabric chairs, bought from Tesco when they were selling them off for £3 each one autumn. They live in the garage and come out when it’s nice. Also useful on holiday or for picnics. Every year we debate proper fancy outside furniture and every year I decide I cannot be bothered with cleaning and storing it. Half the time I don’t even bother with a chair and just sit on a picnic blanket on the lawn!

I've been thinking every year about sofas for the garden but decided this year it's just not worth it.

Anytime I'm out in summer, if I'm not eating-(already have table & chairs from IKEA), I'm tinkering in the garden. I have a fab comfy camping chair & 2 hammocks for relaxing in & when entertaining we're round the table so think it would be a waste. Cushions for the chairs & bench are already a pain when it rains so no extra stress thanks!

@ShirleyPhallus

It is absolutely baffling to me how bloody expensive garden furniture is. Just why???

Interested to hear how waterproof those waterproof bins are. I half expect them to make the contents mouldy after a while

I opened mine up after the winter this week. My cushions aren't in it but there were a couple of old washed and dried towels in there that I used last year for wiping garden furniture. They felt cold but not damp/mouldy. It seems watertight too.

I agree about the cost of garden furniture. we only got our (posh for us) table & chairs because of a relative that worked in a garden centre and got a hefty discount off everything.