Teak Furniture - A Guide On How To Maintain It

By Jennifer Akre

Ah, the brilliance of teak. It's a striking wood for outdoor furniture, planters and other pieces of accent furniture. But, if your teak furniture is outside all year round, it's going to eventually get dirty. How dirty it's going to get, and how hard it's going to be to clean, depends on the kind of maintenance schedule you keep those teak furniture pieces on.

Generally you may look at your teak furniture and think it looks fine. It's a darker grained wood and any dirt doesn't really show up too much. But look around at the other things in your backyard. Look at any furniture or accent pieces with lighter colors. How dirty are they? That same amount of dirt has likely built up on your teak furniture as well. Just because you can't see dirt from a distance, doesn't mean it's not there.

Cleaning of teak furniture is relatively simple. You need a bucket of soapy water and a pad or soft scrub brush. You want to give the piece a complete bath, scrubbing every part of it and then rinsing it well, to make sure none of the soap residue is still on it. The best times to do this kind of teak furniture cleaning is either early in the morning, late in the afternoon, or when it's overcast. You don't want to the sun drying the piece off before you finish cleaning or it could dry some of that soap right into the surface of the wood. The brush you use should be hair or synthetic as using a steel wire brush could leave small pieces of metal behind that will rust in the wood grains and can stain the teak furniture finish.

For the most part, this cleaning style should be enough to keep your teak furniture looking great, but every now and then something happens to leave a larger stain, or blemish, on the teak finish that washing alone won't remove. For this, you're going to have to do a little more work.

Once a stain has worked it's way into the wood, it has to be sanded out. You should use a very fine piece of sandpaper and slowly pull along the direction of the grain of the wood, until the stain is gone.

If you have teak furniture that has been outside a long time, and has silvered, you may notice that the area you just sanded is a more brown and orange color, like the wood used to be. Only time will fix this. You've exposed a new layer of wood that has not aged with the weather, and it will eventually catch up.

For teak furniture that is used to being oiled, after you have removed the blemish, you can go ahead and oil as usual.

Teak furniture is naturally beautiful. Taking a little bit of time out to maintain it will keep that beauty you love showing through your teak furniture pieces for years of enjoyment to come.

Jennifer Akre, owner of different online specialty shops featuring niche products and information for your home, sharers her insight on different items that can make your space both more functional and beautiful. Here, she provides consumers valuable advice when purchasing grand teak furniture, comfortable patio furniture, and lovely teak tables.
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