Buy Outdoor Teak Furniture For Durability and Elegance

Purchasing furniture for your new home is never easy because it is not something you can chuck into the dustbin if you do not really find it suitable or to your liking later on. Many people leave the job to the interior decorators because these people have, not only the knowledge, but also the required expertise. They can at least tell you what type of furniture you should buy for a particular place.

Outdoor teak furniture is little more expensive than the rest. Yet the demand for such furniture is growing to such extent that more and more land is being brought under teak cultivation in South East and South Asia, which is its original habitat. These trees grow 30 to 40 meter tall and the timber from its trunk has been used for making outdoor furniture, boats and ships or any other object that is prone to be exposed to weather condition. The yellowish brown timber with good grain and texture has been aptly named as Royal Timber not only because of its unique look, but also because of its unique properties.

Now let us discuss why teak is so much in demand as outdoor furnishing material:

• Teak is durable due to high density of grains present in the timber. The houses built entirely with teak have stood for centuries and they still look new. Think of the teak wood benches in the parks of your hometown. They were there in the time of your granddads and will be there when your grandchildren are grown up.
• Teak is genus of tropical hardwood trees and therefore is not easily breakable or bendable. It is especially more so because of the presence of silica in its grains. The carpenters’ tools often become blunt because of this.
• Teak is water resistant because of presence of a unique natural oil and do not easily rot. Ships that crossed the Atlantic to discover the Americas or went round half the world in search of spices were all made of teak. They sailed through the high seas for months and faced storms, rain and hail and yet survived to tell the tale. Be sure, if they could endure that, your outdoor teak furniture can bear them too. You will not have to drag them indoors with the hint of bad weather.
• The natural oil in them also saves them from the attacks of pests and insects like fungi and termites.
• Because teak is not bendable, it makes the ideal stand for market umbrellas. Like the tall masts of the ships of yore, they have the capacity to stand erect even after a terrible storm. It is however; wise to close the umbrellas when not in use or when a storm is in the offing. When you buy an outdoor umbrella, make sure the cloth is thick enough to stop the UV rays from reaching you, or else it will only serve a decorative purpose. Too much sun often causes skin cancer; the market umbrellas are there to protect your skin from that. However, that is beside the point. We were talking about teak.
• Teak has a natural honey brown color that remains so for long period and you will be fool to want to paint them with any other color or put any kind of varnish on them.
• That is also the reason why it does not easily catch fire. Because it is generally devoid of any chemical coating or even painting and varnishing, it is one of the most non-flammable furniture materials available. This is another reason why it can be suitable for backyards and patios, especially if you like to cook outdoors. It is also safe kind of furniture if you have patio heaters that have open flames.

Patio heaters can run on electricity, gas or wood. Among them, the ones that run on wood or natural gas like LPG or propane have open flames. Although such heaters are designed in such a manner that they do not spread fire, you can never be sure. Furniture made from inflammable material like plastics will catch fire easily. They can also undergo discolorations because of the heat from the patio heaters. You need not have any such fear if the furniture is made from teak.

Keep teak in your mind while you are on the lookout for your patio furniture. As teak is being cultivated in larger and larger plantations, prices are coming down. However, you cannot expect it to be too cheap. Nonetheless, you can look for cheap outdoor teak furniture at garage sales. If someone is moving out or is moving into apartment house because of old age or disability, he may want to give them up at more an affordable rate. There is no harm in trying.

Kenny Leichester is a foremost expert in the interior design industry specializing in the outdoor or patio settings using patio furniture, patio umbrellas, outdoor cushions, patio heaters, patio lighting and so on to create exquisitely beautiful layout. His work on propane patio heaters are widely distributed and is a regular contributor to PatioShoppers.com.