We continue our odyssey with garden furniture. Actually it's the same thing as outdoor furniture, but for some people and in some areas garden is the preference and we like to see a smile on everyone's face. Garden Furniture has evolved nicely from the days of the rocking chair on the front porch to casual, classy and sometimes very formal outdoor furniture settings on today's decks and patios.

Onward and backward to some more interesting outdoor furniture.

Many people went for the folding sling garden furniture chair. They were a folding frame, which worked well after you learned how to manage them. The frame had a piece of canvas hung loosely from the top of the back to a dowel across the seat front. The canvas sling served as seat and back and you just kind of hung like you were sitting in a hammock. They were fine for a while, but after a length of time your spine would object to being curved, but try as you might, it's difficult to squirm around in a canvas sling.

There was a foot rest attachment that could be added to the canvas sling chair. It was L shaped and had indentations at the end of the long leg of the L which went over the front dowel of the chair. The foot rest had canvas from front to back, but was taut to hold your feet comfy, so your bottom sagged and your feet stayed right up there in a comfortable position. Ahh! Outdoor comfort.

Someone got smart along the way and stretched the canvas from side to side on the seat and a separate piece from side to side on the back and the directors chair was born. It had an X frame and folded up, making it nice to take along on picnics for the tender souls who didn't like sitting on the ground. Directors chairs became popular as lawn chairs and garden furniture.

Some of the finest woods for lawn, garden and patio furniture are teak, shorea, cedar, redwood and cypress.

Teak has been used in building boats for centuries, because it's oily nature withstands moisture, mold and mildew. Teak is an ideal choice for outdoor furniture and is very easy to maintain. Teak has a beautiful appearance and is used for indoor furniture too.

Another popular piece of garden furniture was an all metal chair. The legs were bent like many of the chairs that came with chrome dining room sets of the 1950's. The tubular support came down the back, then made a sharp bend toward the front, under the seat, and at the front made a sharp bend down to the ground, then a sharp bend to the back along the ground, then another sharp bend to the other side of the chair, then a similar route up the other side of the chair. They were pretty comfortable and although they didn't rock, you could get a nice bouncy effect.

To look at the tubular support might make you a little skeptical of how well it was supported, with two legs in the front and no legs in the back where most of the weight would be. I never heard of one giving way at the front bend and folding up backward leaving the occupant with a bunch of flailing arms and legs, trying valiantly to keep from losing their hot dog and lemonade, but you would think that it would have been inevitable.

The seats and backs on the metal garden furniture chairs were generally formed from one piece of metal and had decorative holes drilled in the back and seat for ventilation. Although they had ventilation holes it was always a real curiosity to watch the impromptu dance when someone walked up without thinking and sat in a metal lawn chair that had been sitting in the sun all day.

The seats of the metal chairs tended to get hard after a while. Some manufacturers made chairs seats fashioned after a tractor seat and shaped like the human bottom, which meant that there was more area touching to get sore.

Another fun thing to watch was after a chair was left sitting in the yard with the sprinkler going. Although the seats had vent holes the water would still puddle in the seat and I've seen people tuckered from working in the garden, and others, get a funny look on their faces when all of a sudden they had wet bottoms when they sat.

Of course when you're a kid running through the sprinkler and you want to stop periodically to warm your backside using the advantages of the garden furniture, the logical thing to do is squirt some water on the metal chair seat to cool it a little, then after you're through sitting, squirt it again to make sure there's a puddle, thinking that it may help to keep the seat cooler, or to make an interesting situation if an adult came along and sat down to watch you in the sprinkler, wishing they could get wet too. You could figure your part of the deal was done, but you sure didn't want to take the credit for being too helpful.

Tune in tomorrow for another page of our garden furniture saga.

Return to Outdoor Furniture Contents

Answers to Email | See our On-Line Catalog. Fountain Restoration. Outdoor Furniture History, Care and more.

Please visit our other web site Toms Variety Something for everyone. Enter your search terms Submit search form Web www.refinishfurniture.com copyright © 1998-2008 refinishfurniture.com