Garden Bench and Table

The owners before us left an assortment of things in the house and the garage, of varying quality! A lot of it went on freecycle/gumtree as we would never make use of it.

A few gems in disguise though, including a garden table and a garden bench. Both had seen much better days.

To be honest, I made the table worse by using it as a work table for a few weeks!

THE TABLE

I started with a wire brush on the wood to get rid of all the algae sort of stuff that was on the table top. I don't know if it was the right thing to do, but it seemed to do the job. Then a sand and I was pretty much back to bare wood.  I did this with a sheet of sand paper wrapped around a block of wood - this was pre mouse sander days!

The base I brushed down with a wire brush, and gave it a bit of a clean.

The base I primed with red oxide paint. I only did this because I had some in the garage, but as I was using hammerite direct to rust paint it probably wasn't necessary. 

Then two coats of hammerite black paint.

The top I used teak oil, which I did three coats of using a brush.

Having lived with the table for a good few months now, I'm a little disappointed with the top. It has tired very quickly and looks like it needs of a spruce up again. That will be another job for next spring.

THE BENCH

The bench had many similar processes.

I had to throw all the wood away as it was all rotten and one of the slats was missing.  I had to saw the old bolts off as they were rusted in place.  I tried spraying with WD40 in advance of undoing them, but no luck! And I prepared and painted the metal in a similar way to the table, although I skipped the red oxide primer this time.

The slats were a bit of a decision for me.  Hardwood would have been ideal, but pretty expensive - I would have been looking at £50ish to replace all the slats.  A bit out of my budget.

Instead I went to B&Q (I did go to the wood reclaim shop first but didn't find anything appropriate), and bought some softwood lengths that were the appropriate thickness and width.  I only needed 4 lengths (which I would saw in half), but it was cheaper to buy a pack of 6 for £12.  I also bought a tin of stain (opened and therefore discounted to £6) to protect the wood.  I know the softwood probably won't last as long as hardwood would have done, but I'm pleased with how it's turned out.

I cut the softwood lengths in half for the slats and did two coats of stain.

I had predrilled holes in each slat too to make sure that the stain protector got in the holes too.

Some new bolts were necessary, and the job was done!