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Farmhouse Garden Furniture

Farmhouse garden furniture is otherwise called rustic garden furniture and harkens back to the old days of farms and country living. It is a style all of its own and is fairly distinctive. Generally, farmhouse garden furniture is lumpy, massive and heavy. Occasionally it is roughly hewn, but that is not always the case although it is hardly ever carved in great detail. Farmhouse garden furniture is built to last.

Farmhouse garden furniture encompasses the whole assortment of garden furniture such as tables, chairs, benches, gazebos and arbours. Farmhouse garden furniture is usually made of local timber, but can also be made of iron.

To compliment the garden furniture, there is also indoor furniture in the farmhouse style although this may be a little finer, a little less heavy so that it can be moved around for cleaning purposes.

Farmhouse garden furniture is normally manufactured from local hardwood such as oak, cherry, maple, mahogany, teak or beech, but in fact anything that is to hand. Softwood, such as pine, is cheaper, but it does not normally last as long as hardwood even if it is taken care of regularly and properly.

Hardwood furniture can be stained, oiled or varnished, although it is normally best to just rub linseed oil into the natural wood. A little staining may help bring out the beautiful natural graining in the timber.

Softwood garden furniture is normally full of knots which many people find unsightly. If this is how you think, then you can give the furniture three coats of paint in order to safeguard it.

If however, the knots do not bother you, you can stain and varnish it instead. In either case, all farmhouse garden furniture should be treated every year in the autumn; that is when the sun is no longer at its hottest and before the rain and cold weather set in. The problem with anything manufactured of any timber is rot.farmhouse garden furniture

Hardwood contains more natural oils than softwood so it is better able to protect itself, but all timber stops producing these oils when you kill it by cutting it down. The oil on the surface is dried out by the sun and these dry areas then draw some oil up from deeper inside itself, but the further inside it needs to suck the oil from the  less it can suck, which means that sooner or later the outside becomes dry and then it will take in water.

When that occurs, rot has set in. Hardwood can last a few of years before it gets to this wretched state, but softwood will probably last less than a year. This is why you have to seal the oil in and the water out with paint or varnish in the instance of softwood or restock the oil by rubbing in linseed oil in the case of hardwood.

You could paint hardwood too if you want to, but most people buy hardwood farmhouse garden furniture because it has a lovely grain and paint would only cover up that grain. Decent farmhouse garden furniture is not cheap, but it is beautiful, a problem to steal and will last a lifetime if well looked after by a couple of hours maintenance once a year.

 

 

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