Choosing Fabric for the Outdoor Furniture

Sorry for the prolonged absence but we really haven't accomplished much during the last month.  First there was the holidays and then R tore a bicep muscle so we have been taking a break.  Some bloggers store up projects for when there is a dry spell but I blog in real time so that it doesn't appear that we were able to re shingle the entire house in two days.  That would be great, but it is not realistic.  But for the sake of transparency, we have slowing been re stacking our lumber pile and arguing over why we should or should not throw away those pieces of 6 inch long 2X10's.  Heaven help me if for some reason this summer we need a very short piece of 2X10 lumber. 

Last fall I repainted the vintage Woodard wrought iron furniture that we will use on the deck.  This furniture has all the original cushions, which are in great condition, but the fabric is not something that coordinates with the house or the deck  accessories.  The furniture also came from several different sets so the cushions don't match either.

The first task is to decide on which fabric to chose.  

Two years ago I requested the catalog from fabric vendor, Sailrite.  They also have a website.  So between the catalog and website I was able to view 1,000's of fabric choices without leaving my chair.  I don't believe that there is a brick and mortar store in my area that has this many choices.  AND I surely can't look at that many choices, all at once, without getting a massive headache. 

My husband likes to be involved in making design decisions but he does not like the pre decision making process.  I have found that it is best to narrow the choices down to a handful and then say "I like this one best" and he usually agrees. But there is always that one rare odd occasion where he really does not like something. 

When choosing fabric for outside furniture make sure you choose those that are labeled for outdoor use.  The outdoor fabric I chose is not waterproof so I will need to use furniture covers which is fine with me. 1. I would rather sit on a cloth cushion than a water proof vinyl that tends to be hot and tends to sticks to your skin.  That type of fabric is usually label for marine use such as a boat or jet ski. 2. I do not like hauling in cushions every night AND you know the one time you forgot to bring them it, it will rain.  Been there and done that.

So that is why I ordered samples of my favorite outdoor fabric choices.  Most samples were $1.00 but I had a few that were 2 bucks.  I ordered the samples from the Sailrite website and they arrived in the mail a week later..

I am so glad that I ordered samples because right away I saw that some of my choices were totally wrong.  Like the fabric examples below.

I like both of these bold prints for accent pillows but I found the one on the right is slightly muted and looked out of place against our final choices.

I picked out these two options for possible cushion fabric but immediately thought the option on the left looked too much like the flocked wallpaper patterns that my mother used on the walls in the 70's and 80's.  

I also picked out a handful of solid color fabrics for possible use on accent pillows, piping, and the edge on the box cushions.  Right away I could tell that the black fabric at the very bottom had texture that made it read as a pattern and not solid black.  I also immediately realized that the solid grey fabric choices clashed with the grey of the cedar shingles.

One side of the cushion will be a traditional wide stripe that will work great with a traditional Cape Cod home.  Right away I ruled out those with tan in the pattern.  Also one fabric, although an outdoor fabric, was too limp and would probably not make a good cushion fabric.

I also needed to take into consideration the deck accessories when choosing the fabric.   

 There is the umbrella stand that R picked out of someone's trash.  I did a quick refresh with a coat of satin black spray paint.

 Then there are also ALL the flower pots and containers that I purchased on sale at the end of the summer.  Not shown are several green pots with a basket weave pattern that I HAD to have despite R saying "MORE pots?"  Hey...they were 50% off.

What did I choose?

One side of the cushion will be the wide stripe, the solid black for the piping and edge of the box cushions, and for the other side of the cushion, a bold pattern that is still traditional.

 For the accent pillows I chose a solid green to go with the flower pots, a smaller pattern in black and white fabric, and the large bold pattern that has black swirls that look remotely like the swirls on the umbrella stand. 

 Sailrite also included a coupon for future purchases, which will come in handy when I purchase the fabric.  Gotta love those coupon codes.

I will make the accent pillows but I do not have time to do the cushions so I will take them to a local upholsterer to do that portion of the redo. 

Reuse Repurpose Recycle

Kitchen Exterior Before and After

We voted mid afternoon to avoid the before work and after voters.  Last night I went online for a sample ballet and then made up a cheat sheet so my voting went fairly fast.  I'm pretty sure that we all don't agree on the same candidate but I bet we can ALL agree that we are happy that it will all be over by tomorrow.  #sickoftalkingheadsandpundits  

I promised you before and after photos of the exterior of the kitchen.  I couldn't find the very earliest photos of when the concrete steps were intact with the red wrought iron railing and then a second set of wood steps going to the deck.  It was ugly and awkward.

Before we could do anything we needed to jackhammer the solid concrete steps.  R rented a portable jack hammer.  We can laugh about it now but it wasn't funny then.  The concrete was so hard it would only break off little flakes about the size of a hand.  

Plan B was renting a Bobcat with a jack hammer attachment.  R rented it on a Friday evening and returned it Monday morning.  He would jack hammer awhile and then stop so I could throw the broken pieces down onto the driveway.  The concrete was so hard it actually would cut through my gloves.  

It was a big deal to run across a piece that required two hands to pick up.  I actually was surprised that we were able to remove all of it.  About halfway through the weekend I thought that we would be lucky to just get the concrete down to ground level.  We lucked out and was able to dig out under the concrete and using heavy duty pry bars to pry the pieces up and out of the dirt.

We found broken sheathing and some cracks in the mortar of the concrete block wall.  Both were easy fixes.  The broken sheathing was allowing mice and cold air into the crawl space so we were happy to run across this defect and fix it.  We have fixed so many holes, cracks, and crevices that our heating bill has decreased to about 1/3 of what it was when we bought our house.

After the step was gone we built a platform between the kitchen door and the existing deck. This configuration makes it far easier to bring groceries into the house.

After we rebuilt the deck we went to work on removing the overhang.  It was ugly and not original.  We actually removed three overhangs that were not original.  This large one that hung over the kitchen door area, the one on the garden shed/pump house, and a small one over the back door.  All three of these overhangs caused water damage to the wood and the back door overhang caused extensive wood rot to the sheathing and plaster damage in the living room.

After removing the overhang we then removed the leaking rubber roofing and installed asphalt shingles.  We had two roofing companies tell us that the pitch of the roof was enough for shingles.  We installed the shingles during 95 to 100 degree weather.  R was on the roof and I was on the ladder handing him cut shingles.  

I did a little research on the Internet and we decided we would install 4 roofing nails instead of three and make sure that we removed the cellophane that covers the tar strips.  My parents had a small tornado hit their neighborhood of new homes.  Their home was built by a different builder than the three houses that surrounded them.  My dad had a weather station set up and recorded the wind speed at 96 mph.  The house across the street was knocked off the foundation and all three neighbors lost roofing shingles.  When my dad cleaned up his yard he noticed that all the shingles still had the cellophane on the tar strip.  My parent's home sustained a dent in their garage door from a neighbor's flying patio chair.  No roof shingle damage but the wind speed going across the vent stack openings pulled all the water out of their three toilets.  So long story short we came to the conclusion that due to the low pitch and southern exposure that the shingles would be vulnerable to high winds associated with summer storms.  I'm pleased to tell you that we corrected all the leaks and have not sustained any lost shingles during storms.

Gutters and downspouts were added and we have completely eliminated the huge icicles that we used to get in the winter.  An added bonus was the increase in sunlight coming into the kitchen.

Next came the new restoration windows.  We installed these windows ourselves which saved us $$$. 

Then came priming and painting. 

  We couldn't be happier.  The exterior now looks original and we have the bonus of better operating windows, more light, and no leaks.

The small square window is over the sink and is non operational.  A double hung window was a no go because I am short and would not be able to open or close a double hung window without climbing up on a chair.  I asked about a casement window but none were offered in the size we needed so I am OK with the non operational window.

Tomorrow I will post photos of the game room windows that we installed.  We start hanging cedar shingles tomorrow.  Those shingles will stay bare unless we get a warm day above 55 degrees that will allow me to prime and paint.

We put the recently repainted mismatched Woodard furniture back on the deck.  The black satin paint unifies all the different pieces and makes it look like one big set.  It's too late in the season to bring out the cushions and glass for the tables.  I have been swooning over outdoor fabric and I have about 20 choices that I need to send away for samples.  My plan is to use different fabrics on the two sides, so that I can change the look of the furniture by flipping the cushion.  

Also in the plan for next year is new decking.  This is the original decking and it is cracked, cupped, and split.  We will install 5/4 boards like what we used on the kitchen door platform, barn loft platform, and the small platform and steps that go down to the back yard.  The current decking is 2X6 boards.  By installing 5/4 boards we can eliminate a lot of weight from the deck.  

The cats love to sit on the zero steer mower.  

Curbside Treasures and What are We Going to Do with Them

Seriously R should go pro.  He is finding so much stuff that I just can't keep up.

The first item was a newish metal and glass computer table (rt side of photo) with a pull out keyboard shelf.  I can't use the table but the rectangular shaped piece of glass went into my glass stash.  I have round, square, and rectangular pieces that I can use to make a small table top or a shelf.  

The photo below shows the computer desk without the glass because I had already added it to my stash pile of tempered glass.

You can buy pieces like this at Pier 1.  But why buy when it's free.  I've given a few pieces away to people who have asked me " where can I get a piece of glass for a table top?"  

Don't use single window pane glass for a table top or shelf.  You need to use tempered glass which is stronger and will break into a million little pieces rather than large jagged pieces that are dangerous.

The other curbside treasure was a glass top coffee table with a metal bottom.  The glass top is a bowed rectangular shape.  There was a $5 sticker on it from a garage sale.  The glass is worth more than 5 bucks.  It looks like no one bought it at a garage sale so they put it out to the street.

I'm keeping just the glass from this piece, too.  I love the shape.  I already know what I am going to do with it.  I have several cast iron sewing machine bases that I have purchased over the years.  One in particular is just the ends and the steel rod that the foot treadle rode on.  I wish I had a photo of it to show you but I could not find it in the barn or the basement.  I'm pretty sure it is in the barn but it was about 120 degrees up in the loft so I might have been looking right at it and could not see it.

I will need to get a longer rod so I can extend the sides to accommodate the longer piece of glass.  I am hoping to add two additional rods at the top for greater stability.  Fingers crossed that there is an appropriate place to drill a hole.

Of course it will be painted in satin black and should make a nice console table for the deck.  I have a narrow area on the deck where I think this will work perfect.

I could also use it as a sofa table behind one of my vintage wrought iron Woodard sofas. One of my Woodard lamps would look perfect behind a Woodard sofa.  They are pretty rare and I have 4 of them.  I have yet to run across any other lamps.  

I was lucky that I got these.  I was buying a Woodard tea cart from a seller in Owosso, Michigan (home to Woodard Furniture) and I mentioned to the guy that I collected Woodard furniture and was using the tea cart in my older home.  He then asked me if I was interested in lamps. I asked 'what kind of lamps' and he said 'Woodard'.  I said 'of course' even though I had no idea what a Woodard lamp looked like.

He said he wanted them to go to someone who liked and appreciated Woodard furniture and asked me not to resell them.  He said his late father worked at the Woodard factory and these were his.  I agreed not to resell and asked 'how much?'and that is when he said '10 bucks each'.

I was thrilled.  One of the lamps is the oak leaf acorn pattern that I have a lot of pieces and the other three are the daisy pattern.  Once they are all painted the same color as the furniture it will not matter one bit if the pattern is different or not.

Oh man, have you ever not been able to find something in your house then all of a sudden out of the blue, you remember where you think you have put it?  It just hit me that the cast iron sewing machine base might be in the garden shed or the sun room (excess project furniture storage room).

Both the metal desk and coffee table base will go out to the curb where I am sure a scrapper will pick them up before the trash truck shows up.  It's the beauty of recycling and reusing.

Woodard Manufacturing Marks and Removing Damaged Glides

While I was removing the glides I was able to get an up close look at the bottom of the Woodard patio furniture and found three different manufacturer marks (labels).  Usually I can tell if a piece of wrought iron furniture is a Woodard piece by the quality but it's nice to know that there are manufacturer marks to look for if you are not sure. 

 The Woodard paper label.  This was found on a three piece sofa set that I am going to guess was made in the 70's.  I found it on the bottom frame that hold the cushions.

On another one piece sofa I found an embossed label on the frame that holds the cushions.

The third type was found on the bottom of a mesh seat of a dining chair and it is a welded on metal label.

You will need to look closely to find these marks especially if your piece has been painted multiple times.

The glides came out fairly easy using a slotted screw driver to lift out the broken glides.

Glides where the only remaining part was the outer edge required the use of a slotted screw driver to get between the cup and the outer edge.  About 50% of the time this required a hammer to tap the screw driver.

When the entire glide is still remaining but it is worn flat so that there is no edge to pry on requires the use of a hammer and slotted screw driver to punch a hole in the center so you can pry it up and out.

If the glide is fully intact just use your slotted screw driver to gently pry up the edge a little at a time so that you do not damage the glide and it can be reinstalled after you repaint.

I love that the original color of the furniture is revealed when you remove the glides.  Some of the chairs were originally painted a bright yellow and a sofa was pink in an earlier life.  Soon they will be satin black. Which I think is a step up from yellow and pink, don't you think?  

Patio Furniture Glide Replacement

I needed to measure for replacement glides on the feet before I start painting all of the wrought iron patio furniture that is sitting in my driveway.

What are glides?  Glides are the plastic inserts in the feet of your wrought iron patio furniture that protects both the furniture and the floor surface that your furniture is sitting on.  Glides also help the furniture 'glide' over the floor surface so that you do not physically need to pick up the furniture to move it.  One of the benefits of wrought iron furniture is that it is heavy but this is also one of the drawbacks if you like to rearrange your furniture.
   

Most of the glides on my furniture were in fair to destroyed condition or just plain missing.  So I am going to replace all the glides.

 But first I needed to measure the space inside the cup which is called the ID (inside diameter) measurement.  You can also remove the damaged glide and measure it.  I did both and came up with the same measurement of 1 1/2 inches. You want to measure carefully because some glides come in dimensions measured to the 1/32nd.  Measure twice and if you are still not sure, buy one 4 pack of glides before committing to 24, 32, or more glides.

Here is a photo of one of the glides that just fell out while I was dragging furniture around on the driveway. 

While researching and pricing glides I found out that you can also order black glides.  I was thrilled because I am painting my furniture satin black.  I then noticed that they are almost twice the price of the white glides.  I need 66 glides for this batch of furniture so I am talking about $40.00 which is doable.....$80.00 not so much considering that you can hardly see the glides when the furniture is in place.

I also found a company that sell the metal cup feet.  I've passed on some patio furniture because it didn't have the cup feet that holds the glide.  There is a line of wrought iron furniture (not Woodard) that was popular in 60's that didn't have the cup.  Of course you would need to spot weld the cup in place. But I have found that this furniture is generally less expensive than Woodard so paying to have the cup welded on still makes the furniture affordable.  These pieces are also simple in styling so they work with contemporary or mid century modern (MCM) better than most of the more ornate Woodard pieces.

Websites and stores that sell patio furniture glides

http://www.patioproducts.com/parts.asp

http://www.patiofurnituresupplies.com/foot-glides.html

http://www.ebay.com/  search for patio furniture glides

http://www.truevalue.com

http://www.homedepot.com/

http://www.lowes.com/pd/Garden-Treasures-1-1-2-in-Wrought-Iron-Leg-Cap-Insert/3034646

Vintage Woodard Patio Furniture

This next project will take some time so I will work on it a little bit every day.  The next area of  the house that needs re shingling and painted is up on the deck.  This time of year it is very hot up there until about 2PM in the afternoon when it transitions to shade.  So while I wait for shade I can also work on this new project which is......

......making all these mismatched pieces look like they are all from the same set.  Most of the furniture is Woodard from Owosso, Michigan.

I added up how much $$$$ I have invested in this mismash of patio furniture and it came to $375.00 (there is another table and chair set included in that figure).  Some of the items were curbside treasures and others were purchased off of Craigslist, eBay, or a random garage sale.

You might think that this is a lot of vintage patio furniture but it's not.  I have twice this much stored in my basement but it is in various patterns.  I should have rethought collecting vintage wrought iron furniture because it not something I can sit on a shelf and dust once a month.  It's heavy (good) and takes up a lot of room.  But I love that I can leave it outside during the winter (minus the glass tops) and I can repaint if I decide to change the color.  Most of this Woodard furniture is the oak leaf/acorn pattern.  

More Woodard Patio Furniture

I purchased another Woodard patio table on eBay last week. The table was in St. Clair Shores Michigan which is roughly a one hour drive almost entirely on expressways. I told R, "it will be a quick hour there and hour back." Then the two hour tour turned into a four hour nightmare. The only thing missing were the Captain and Gilligan.

The table and 4 chairs were a great buy. This table has a white milk glass top which should look nice once the wrought iron is painted satin black. It is the same pattern I have in a large sofa, coffee table table, end table, 2 cushion arm chairs, a three piece sofa that will also configure into a love seat and armless chair, 2 round tables with 4 chairs each, and also a matching lamp. The only piece I really need now is the chaise lounge.Our little trip started out just fine. I programmed the GPS and we were on our way. No problems turn left, turn right, etc etc until we came to a stop sign. We stopped, GPS prompted us to continue straight the only problem was the boulevard that was directly ahead. We turned right and when we had the chance crossed over to the other side of the boulevard. The GPS was totally lost. I directed R as best as I could from the mental picture I had of the Google map in my head. Eventually the GPS located us and started giving directions again. The GPS then deposited us at the wrong address but still close enough. Phew made it. Return trip should be a breeze. Joke was on us.

We loaded the truck and away we went. Hey look US 96 no problemo now. This is when I started hearing the robot in Lost in Space say "Danger, danger, R and J...Danger!" The entrance ramp was closed but there were detour signs. So we followed the detour signs and more detour signs and more detour signs....oh look the police have the road blocked off. Now what? We drove north and then noticed on the GPS yellow highway lines dead ahead. US 696 never looked so good.

We drove until Sashabaw Road that's the exit for the DTE Music Theater (formerly Pine Knob). I was famished and R needed to make a pit stop. We ate at Culver's because they have frozen custard. By the time we got home it was four hours later. I felt sick because I inhaled my food. R had a headache because he said it was stressful driving a dually in heavy traffic especially when I kept saying "TURN LEFT NOW!!"

So the rest of the day was a waste. We unloaded the furniture and both took a nap.

The President is sitting on my chair

One lovely wrought iron chair found in the trash. Discarded. Tossed out. Given the old heave ho. Oh wait, saying ho isn't politically correct anymore. Ask Imus and Santa Claus. So let's just say it was heaved.

Roger was driving home from work the other day and this chair was out at the curb waiting to be picked up by the trash collector. He drove by and then turned around and retrieved it because he knows his wife LOVES wrought iron. AND.....he didn't have to drive to Wisconsin to pick it up, either.

Roger is rather lucky when it comes to finding stuff in the trash. He once found a round Woodard table and the four matching curved back chairs at the street with the trash. The owner was just walking up the driveway after placing it in the trash. All it needs is paint. Now if he could just find a million dollar oil painting in the trash.














I'm a sucker for wrought iron. I once made Roger drive all the way to Milwaukee and back in one day, just to pick up a Woodard wrought iron patio sofa and chair with pads. It was a steal on eBay for $95. I currently have a two car garage filled with Woodard patio furniture.

Back to the chair. Look at the details. I love how the bottom of the leg curls up. Also the scrolling on the back is very different. I didn't find a name on the chair so I will need to investigate a little to find who the manufacturer was.

Notice the chair that the Prez is sitting on? I have that entire set. Sofa, 2 armed chairs, cocktail table, end table, chaise lounge, table and three chairs. I am missing one chair and Dubya's sitting on it.