Rehab your outdoor furniture:

The Cowgirl Gardener, Margeaux Denham, invites us into her award winning food musings and lifestyle on the range to find out how to update your outdated or “patina” having outdoor furniture and more.  If you’re like her, you can probably relate to a lot of these things and what it means to have a piece of furniture that you love the shape, or the quality, but you just can’t get rid of it. Breathe new life into it, instead of taking it to the dump! How about some up-cycling or even just a good ole-rehabilitation?! Enjoy!

The image above is actually from a chair we were contemplating getting rid of… But we ended up salvaging it and restoring new life into the ol’ girl yet! Here is another re-purposing project for rehabbing dated outdoor furniture.

Believe it or not, this swing once looked like it belonged in a trash heap! This swing was spared from a mountain of household trash! Before, this swing was painted a dated shade of hunter green. It had hideous green and white sun faded stripped fabric.

It was not anything a little elbow grease,  $35 worth of hammered metal spray paint, and;  $35 worth of cedar couldn’t fix! This cost effective fix is a fraction of the cost of new outdoor furniture.
First, the tattered and faded fabric was taken off of  the metal frame. After removing the fabric, the frame was given a good cleaning. Spider webs, dirt, and grime were removed. Next the frame was given a few good coats of hammered metal spray paint. ( The hammered metal spray paint is forgiving, and covers a lot of imperfections.) My handy husband cut the cedar to size then screwed down the cedar to the swing with brackets. After the swing was back in action, it was given a few good coats of linseed oil to protect it from the elements. When our friend saw the swing he had given to us he jokingly said he wanted it back! He was in awe of how nice it looked after its facelift, it had looked so tattered before!

This was such a simple project that any do it yourself enthusiast could do. You and your friends will be amazed at the results and mother earth will be happy the item is being reused and not sitting in a mountain of “trash”!