Conventional Plastic Web Lawn Chairs

Clean plastic webbing with an all-purpose cleaner, using a scrub brush to remove stains. If the webbing is looking dingy, try mixing some detergent and a half-cup of bleach in one gallon of water to use as a cleaning solution. As a last resort, local hardware stores sell kits for re-webbing a chair when the original webbing resists your best cleaning efforts or has deteriorated beyond use. To keep the aluminum frames opening and closing easily, fill an eyedropper with vegetable oil and squirt into all the joints. If the aluminum has corroded, polish very lightly with a fine-grade steel wool.

Stacking Resin Chairs

White resin - Use a cleaning solution of three tablespoons of automatic dishwashing detergent dissolved in one gallon of warm water. The dishwashing detergent contains a bleaching agent that will whiten the plastic. Note: Do not use this cleaning solution on colored resin. Colored resin - Most commercial cleaners are too abrasive to be used on resin lawn furniture. To keep from scratching or dulling the surface, clean with a wet sponge dipped in baking soda, using circular motions, then rinse well. Soapy water will work well on lightly soiled chairs. To bring back color and shine to faded resin furniture, simply spray with WD-40 and wipe with a clean, dry cloth - you'll be surprised at the results!

Rattan and Wicker

First, dust the furniture or use a soft brush to remove debris from crevices. Clean with a mixture of one tablespoon of dishwashing soap to one gallon of water, and rinse well. Let them dry thoroughly before using again because the fibers can stretch while wet. If one of the stems on the back of the chair is broken, simply glue the pieces together and tape above and below the glued joint to stabilize while drying overnight.

Teak

Teak is one of the most durable and low maintenance woods used in outdoor furniture. If it is oiled, it will retain its warm, reddish-brown color. If left untreated, it will weather to a silver-gray patina.If your teak furniture requires cleaning, this can be done with a VERY soft brush or pad and some warm, soapy water. Wash down afterwards with clean water. Do not use high-pressure hoses, and steel wool or steel wire brushes should not be used at all, as any residue left in the grain will rust and discolor the wood. If the furniture has some stubborn and heavily ingrained stains, these can be removed by sanding with a fine grade of sandpaper, working only with the direction of the timber grain. After sanding the stains away, you may wish to re-oil the area, or if the furniture had previously been left natural, the fresh teak color exposed by sanding will soon mellow in with the existing patina.

Now get to work cleaning!

In the remodeling process there are always lots of design decisions to be made. Influencing those decisions is price, quality and functionality.

Our home is 1985 vintage so the master bath isn’t as large as some newer homes and that fact also played a part in our choices. We wanted the tile on the floor to be carried on into the shower to make the space look as large as possible. We started looking knowing that the tile had to be durable, come in a variety of sizes and shapes (such as bull nose to finish the edges of the shower) and be low maintenance. We also knew it would need to be very slip resistant since it would be on the shower floor.

We decided against travertine, slate or any natural material as those have to be sealed periodically and we didn’t want to deal with that since we would have so much of it to do. That narrowed it to porcelain or ceramic tile. We chose four that we liked and checked out samples from the store. Then the fun began!

We took them home and laid them on the floor in our bathroom to see how they looked. We decided that any of the 4 would be fine with regard to color and texture but how to check the slip resistance? I was told by my sister in law that there is a number detailing the slip resistance that can help you decide but none of the tile we picked seemed to be part of that program so we were on our own! Then in an inspired moment my husband suggested we take off our socks and shoes and he proceeded to spray the tiles down with water; away we went trying our best to slide across the bathroom without falling down.

Glad no one had a video camera on us but we were able to eliminate two of the four and still remain upright. Ah, but what if the soap or shampoo gets on the floor of the shower? You can probably guess where this is going. . . He added soap. We were much more careful this time and had a clear winner without hurting ourselves! Only one of our original four withstood this most critical test.

I hope that our experience will help you if you ever find yourself in similar circumstances. Now if only my contractor can figure out how to re-route the plumbing so we can have that pocket door we want!