patio furniture makeover

It's almost warm enough for a BBQ here in Western Washington--hooray! Okay, I'm only kind of kidding. We BBQ in the pouring rain if we have to. But as the weather's been perking up, I've been thinking about hosting a backyard dinner with some friends. Until I remembered that my patio furniture was pretty much done. I'd left the wicker chairs out uncovered and the wicker rotted, and at last year's party someone sat on one and went right through the seat! Yikes! The other chairs are okay, but they are pretty weathered. And since patio furniture is on the "wants" list and not the "needs" list, I had to get creative.

Here's one of the chairs before. It used to be a nice, golden brown color. The rain took care of that. This calls for a little outdoor spray paint!


The first step before painting anything is to prep. That means cleaning and taping, and those two steps always seem to take longer than the actual painting! For wicker, use a spray bottle to lightly mist the piece,


then use a soft cloth to wipe off dirt. Or get your kids to do it because a spray bottle always screams "FUN!"


Next, be sure to repair any broken pieces of wicker. I glued some of the longer ones down with wood glue, and trimmed the shorter ones.


If you're spray painting an outdoor wicker piece, be sure to choose an indoor/outdoor spray paint. Tape off any metal parts you don't want to be painted, then spray from left to right in even sweeps. I did two coats on my set (chairs and table).


For my broken chair, I cut the wicker seat off completely. Now this part is kind of laughable, and not at all professional, but it totally worked! I cut long strips of commercial grade upholstery fabric (because a friend gave it to me for free--you could also use upholstery webbing, available at fabric stores like JoAnn, or even Walmart). Then I sewed them together end-to-end to create a very long strip. Then I tied one end to my starting point. Wrapping them around the bars of the original seat, I essentially created a basket weave seat to replace my broken one.



Don't worry--this is not going to be seen. I added a coat of paint just to make it less noticeable.


Now for the great cover-up. I found cushy chair pads at Walmart for $10. Once they're on, you don't even see my ugly basket weave job! And it's sturdy enough that we won't have to worry about another comic event at this year's BBQ. Party at my house, everyone!