Ask Jo: Retro Patio Furniture

Every so often we get questions and comments from readers. We think others might be curious too so we answer the questions here on the blog.

After reading this blog post Bonnie Tucker asks, “I love your retro outdoor furniture, where did you purchase it?”

Thanks for the compliment Bonnie. I love the furniture too. When the patio at the farm house was built we debated and debated about what to do for furniture. We had friends that had bought furniture with cushions and there always seemed to be a problem with them. Sometimes the cushions were left out in the rain. Sometimes a spark from the fire would pop up and a hole was burned in the fabric. The sun would fade the cushions too. We quickly decided we didn’t want furniture with cushions.

Hubby’s knees aren’t the best so we knew we didn’t want any type of Adirondack chairs. The seats of them are just too low to the back to get out of.

Finally I said “WHAT DO YOU WANT?”. At this point I was frustrated because everything I showed him he shot down. He said, “What about those chairs mom had?” Well I didn’t know what he was talking about and finally he said you know those metal ones. YES!! I love them but had forgotten all about them. That’s when we started hunting.

We have slowly collected them via flea markets and such. All of it was different colored and needed paint.

We were really excited to find the little “end table” when we were in Orinoco for the Gold Rush flea market. It was a PAIN to carry the thing as the top of it is cement.

We were extra excited when we found the table. That came for the Labor Day flea market in Clear Lake.

All of it was rusty in spots and different colored. There are three different chair patterns. You can see the backs of the chairs by the table are all the same but the bottoms are different. We don’t care.

We debated about leaving them as is as we know many people do but we decided to fix them up instead. We took them to a professional sand blaster. After that we took them to an auto body painter. They are painted with auto body paint. We love them.

Our project that we thought might be cheap ended up kind of expensive but we are very happy with the end result. We don’t have to worry about cushions and we both like the furniture. Another good thing, if something happens to one or if we’d want more, we can always get another and do the same process. They will match at least as good as the ones we have do.

I’ve used the patio quite a bit already. The childcare kids love it…I just wish we had grass surrounding it!

…and that’s the story of my patio furniture.