Let’s Paint the Outdoor Furniture!

Do you love to change the look of your stuff? Rearrange a room? Add a pop of color to your décor? Completely change your color scheme? I do too!!! And I prefer to do it as economically as possible which usually means using paint to freshen up everything possible as opposed to buying new.

I even love to spice up our outdoor space! The deck has been through MANY transformations over the years. You can see all of them in the post Perpetual Deck Project. When we moved in, the cedar stain was well-worn. Since then, it has been through several color schemes. As you’ll see in the pictures below, I’ve also replaced the outdoor furniture cushions several times…..4 to be exact. The current cushions are the first store-bought ones. I sewed the 2nd and 3rd sets. While that was fun, when it was time to replace them again a couple of years ago, I had lots going on and found this set at a great price at Lowes so I chose to actually buy them ready-made!

Boy, weather sure can do a number on outdoor furniture! We live in the Inland Northwest, northern Idaho, so we get to experience all 4 seasons. Since our storage shed is full of other stuff, there is no room to store the deck furniture during the winter so we store it under the deck. Having it under the deck does help keep the snow off of it but doesn’t completely protect it from the elements. Yes, I know we could cover it with tarps but do you think we do? That would be a No. In fact, there may have been a year or two where we just left it on the deck. Just saying.

With the sun beating down on the furniture all summer, the rain in the spring and fall and the bitter cold of winter, our outdoor furniture takes a beating. Oh, and then there is the front patio furniture which doesn’t even get put under the deck during the winter. It does, though, sit close to the house under an overhang, so it gets a bit of protection from the snow.

The deck furniture consists of a glass topped metal table with 4 chairs; 4 plastic hand-me-down chairs and a little metal table. We also have a large swing that sits on the lawn. When we bought the table & chairs, the metal was painted a pretty seafoam green with little grey specks. After a few years of wear and tear, the paint was faded so I painted all the metal parts black using Rustoleum spray paint in matte.

Painting the metal on the table and chairs sure gave new life to the set! The lawn swing was also green when we bought it. As you can see in the picture below, it started to rust. I after sanding the rusted spots with steel wool, I sprayed it black also using the same matte black Rustoleum spray paint to change the color from green to black. I also sprayed the little deck side table which is a repurposed vinyl album holder.

The hand-me-down plastic chairs were white when they were given to me. The first time I painted them, I chose a deep burgundy spray paint. White is a hard color to paint red and it took 3 coats to cover it well. Since reds tend to fade and get that chalky whitish wash on them, that color only lasted a couple of years. When I repainted them, I used an aqua interior paint that I had left over from when we painted my daughter’s room many years ago. Amazingly, it lasted very well! Last year, though, when I changed the color scheme on our outside trim, deck, shutters, etc. from burgundy to teal, I decided to repaint these chairs too – even though the color they were coordinated ok, I wanted them to match.

The paint I used on the chairs this time is an exterior paint from Lowes. Olympic Assure is the brand and the color is Tahitian Treat. It’s a bright teal, almost aqua color. I used a sponge brush to apply the paint. I wasn’t sure if there would be streaks but I didn’t want to try to find a similar color in a spray, because #1 I would have to drive to town and #2 it would just be $ that I didn’t need or want to spend. I applied two coats of paint to the chairs, letting them dry about an hour in between coats and they came out beautifully!

While painting the plastic deck chairs, I noticed that the front patio chairs which were a nice forest green had faded dramatically. I decided I might as well paint them too. There are 2 of them in the Adirondack style each with a footrest. I also have a little side table next to one of the chairs (the 2nd table broke a few years ago). Once again, I used a foam brush to apply 2 coats of the Tahitian Treat.

Since I had the painting supplies out, I looked around to see what else might need a bit of freshening and thought it might be fun to paint some of the flower pots. I usually buy ready-made hanging flower pots and the pot is that bland tan color. Not only is it bland but tan is a warm color and my house is grey. I am trying to warm it up with the teal accents but even then, the tan looked out of place. To apply paint to the flower pots, I just continued with the little foam paintbrush I had been using and applied two coats. I had two burgundy flower pots too but those I decided to paint the grey that I used on the garage door.

What I love so much about paint is that it instantly changes the look of an item at a reasonable cost. Why replace it when you can refurbish it? Also, when you get tired of the color, it’s a simple fix to change it! I bought these deck rugs when the color scheme was burgundy. Over the summer last year, they ‘faded’ to the perfect teal color! How odd is THAT?!! The rugs are woven vinyl so they do well outside. These were bought at WalMart for around $35 and held up through two summer seasons. My current ones are black and white and I found them at Bed Bath & Beyond for $29.99 each in 6′ x 9′ size. With a 20% coupon, the price was just $24!

Supplies Used

• Olympic Assure Tahitian Treat
• Foam paintbrush
• Rustoleum in flat black

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