Turn a Dull Patio Table Into Something Special

by Diane Williams

2 Materials

$70

3 Days

Easy

I literally found a patio set in someone's garbage pile, Hooray for me! It was ugly but I knew I could fix that. I loaded it up and brought it home. That was not an easy feat.

turn a dull patio table into something special

This is the way I found the table. Peeling and dull from the elements.

The same with the chairs. They needed a overhaul.

I took apart the chairs and removed the fabric. I was left with sticks. This made it much easier and faster to sand. I used an 80 grid sand paper. My preference is an orbital sander. There were 6 chairs so this took a couple of days. Then I washed the pieces down with soap and water and let dry. Then for a final sanding I used a 120 grit sandpaper. I wiped it down with a wet cloth. I was reading up about what to use to seal it. Since this was teak wood, I thought that will be easy to use teak sealer....NO....Apparently teak oil is mostly linseed oil. Teak wood has it's own oils and doesn't need anything extra. However it will turn gray.

I definitely like the look of the honey colored teak. So I did some research and found Semco Teak Sealer. It's used mostly for the boating industry. It was easy to work with and a little goes a long way. I purchased a Quart. I used it on the huge table and all 6 chairs and still have 25% left.

On the table I Removed the legs and sanded them separately. It also made it easier to sand underneath the table. Because teak is so heavy and expensive the underneath used some cedar wood which is lower quality and I wanted to make sure I sanded and treated that area well.

Then 120 sanding same as the chairs.

The table had some areas splintered. I gave those a little extra sanding and used some wood putty to fill them in.

When sanding make sure you use a mask, the particles get everywhere! You'll be blowing them out of your nose days later.