Painting the Garden Furniture

 Shining in the spring sunshine.
Frisbee Lawn Adirondack Seat

I've always loved the natural, weathered, grey look for my wooden garden furniture - the splodges of chrome yellow lichen adding the colour, filigrees of used cobwebs providing texture. For years I've chosen rustic, weather-beaten, and paintless...

Paintless by default?

But I suspect my garden furniture has been paintless by default - something to do with the cost of good quality outdoor paint, for one.

And I lack the confidence needed to choose the 'right' and garden-appropriate shade from a colour chart. Tangerine or lime green - too 'out there'? Slate blue-grey or white - too classic?

By winter my garden has lost its flower and leaf colour (apart from the evergreens). I miss the pink-cheeked roses, the summer yellow daisies, the glowing reds of the autumn trees. I miss purple, and lavender. I miss colour!

Recycled, Environmentally Friendly Paint

Luckily I've discovered an endless supply of recycled paint at the local Eco Shop. Quality - superb. Colour choices - not so many, therefore making it easier for me. Price - budget and brilliant! Huge tins of high quality, environmentally friendly exterior paints, barely used. So, two weeks of obsessive outdoor painting of five garden chairs, four benches, every visible wooden fence, and one cottage later...

 Photographed in autumn.
Purple Wooden Garden Seats

I am the proud owner of the following: a lavender garden bench, three bright purple slatted seats, a pair of cool peppermint green Adirondack chairs, another lone Adirondack of a streaky fuchsia pink hue, a rusty red garden bench and table, and two forest green park benches. All my wooden post and rail fences are nose-bleed red, and Pond Cottage has turned green - well, that huge can of green paint was nearly full...

 Rusty the dog is helping.
Painting the Adirondack Chairs

There have been some minor casualties. My black and white kitten still has a faintly fuchsia pink shoulder. And dozens of snoozing spiders have woken abruptly to find themselves sticky purple, or green, or red, or peppermint... Oops.