They’re not teak, but wow. Being a manufacturer of outdoor teak furniture, we don’t get to discuss beds all that much. So I thought I’d take this Fun Friday opportunity to show you a few very unique beds that I’m sure you’ve never seen before.

2001, A Space Odyssey

The Ultimate Futon

Not for those with Restless Leg Syndrome

There are even more examples of these interesting beds at http://freshome.com/2008/03/18/16-of-the-most-extreme-modern-beds-youll-ever-see/. This blog, Freshome, has a fantastic array of other unique home décor items. You may want to make it part of your daily web routine.

Nowadays there are so many options available from teak trellises to teak dining tables, and beyond teak furniture there are a variety of materials available, including aluminum, stainless steel, and all-weather wicker. The variety can be daunting if not confusing. Creating a primer on everything you need to know about buying outdoor furniture would take months and months and hundreds of pages. Since I don’t want to bore you to tears or take up all of the memory on our server, I’ll just give you a helpful hint.

Ask yourself “How do I want to use my outdoor home?” Once you answer that question, you will have a much greater sense of what type of outdoor furniture meets your needs.

“I want a place to eat with family and entertain friends on special occasions.”� Obviously what suits you best is an outdoor dining set. Although a nice little bistro table and two side chairs may suit newlyweds or empty nesters, most families need a 4- or 6-seater (48″� or 60″�). If you entertain friends and relatives as much as you eat with your spouse and children, then an 8- or 10-seat arrangement better fits your lifestyle.

“I am looking for a relaxing setting to chat and enjoy the company of friends.”� Now what you’re talking about is an outdoor living room collection, often referred to as a deep seating or conversation group. This outdoor furniture style is fairly new, and its rise coincided with the vast improvement in outdoor fabrics. Large plush cushions on generous metal, resin, or teak furniture frames make this style ideal for relaxing outdoors. These collections typically consist of a club chair, ottoman, loveseat, sofa, and accent tables.

“I want to create a sanctuary in my garden or yard. A setting that creates a scenic view yet has some practicality.”� Here you’ll want to think about the traditional garden chairs and benches as well as trellises, arbors, and fencing. These pieces (especially the teak furniture versions, in my opinion) can really beautify your garden or yard by breaking up the endless rows of flora with elegant outdoor furniture that also can serve as a nice place to rest on a sunny day or a border to better define your yard or keep out nosy animals (no, I don’t mean your neighbors).

“I just want relax on the porch, read a nice book, and slowly sip a tall glass of lemonade.”� Swings, rockers, and Adirondack chairs are right up your alley. These simple, practical pieces have been around for decades, if not centuries, and are cost-effective ways to create a special place without purchasing an 11-piece outdoor dining set or 6-piece outdoor living room collection. If you simply want an area outside your home to relax alone or with your spouse, one or two rocking chairs will fit the bill nicely.

Don’t let me mislead you though; outdoor furniture today is very versatile. You can just as well buy two deep seating club chairs to relax on the porch rather than a swing or use garden chairs around your pool instead of a steamer. My point is, once you know how you want to live outdoors, you are better able to put everything into context and make the right purchasing decision for your lifestyle.

How are quotes, logic puzzles, or oddities related to teak furniture? They’re not, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a some fun each week. On Fridays I will post something that has little to do with teak or outdoor furniture, but it should make you think or smile.

Today I’ll introduce you to one of my favorite things. No, not teak furniture. Quotes. I have always loved a good quote, whether from famous historical figures or unknown historical footnotes.

I am a big fan of brevity. The faster people can get to the point, the faster I can understand the core of what they’re saying. Thus my passion for quotes. They can sum up an entire philosophical position in as little as one sentence. Plus they can run the gamut from thought provoking to just plain hysterical. Where else can you get that kind of range in less than 50 words?

So, without further ado, here is a rather eloquent quote regarding child rearing:

If you would have your son to walk honourably through the world, you must not attempt to clear the stones from his path, but teach him to walk firmly over them - not insist upon leading him by the hand, but let him learn to go alone.

- Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

The biggest factor that has turned the outdoor furniture industry (teak furniture included) from a niche segment into a mainstream behemoth has been advances in materials science. From new protective coatings for metal furniture to resins that look like natural wicker, these advances have enabled us outdoor furniture manufacturers to create outdoor pieces with distinctively indoor looks.

One area that has seen the biggest advancements is outdoor fabric. Traditionally stiff with boring color pallets, outdoor fabrics were not very inspiring. However, in the last five years a number of companies (led by Sunbrella®) have perfected the area of solution-dyed acrylics, which have the look and feel of indoor fabrics but can repel the elements and resist fading for up to a decade. Simply amazing.

As can be seen in the January 2008 issue of Casual Living Magazine, my favorite trade journal, here are some recent fantastic fabric introductions across the color spectrum. By way of a little self promotion, click here to see some of our high-style outdoor fabrics as well.

SUMMER BLUES

GARDEN GREENS

AUTUMN BROWNS

MORE DARK SHADES

REDS THAT POP

Today’s Fun Friday post is actually a bit of trivia related to teak furniture.

Did you know that even today, elephants are used to haul teak? Moving teak has always been a tough proposition because of its weight and density. The lumber is so dense that it will not float down the rivers. Instead elephants drag the teak logs through the rain forests to the coast where they are then transported to teak mills. The elephants have even been trained to stack the logs in symmetrical piles, and when a bell sounds at the end of the day, the elephants stop working without any human intervention.

Happy Tuesday. I hope everybody had a nicer weekend than our poor friends in the Midwest who were walloped by snow. Here’s looking to brighter days ahead.

As promised, this week I’ll be talking about the wondrous characteristics of teak. So here we go—the ten things you should know about teak so you can make an educated purchase choice and be the life of any cocktail party:

1. Teak’s genus name is Tectona Grandis. And unlike many other woods (Shorea or Eucalyptus, for example), there is only one teak. If you see companies marketing “teak-like” products or furniture made from “African teak,” you can be sure you are not looking at the real thing.
2. Contrary to popular belief, teak is not a rainforest tree. Teak is a deciduous tree native to Southeast Asia (it spreads naturally from India through Myanmar and Thailand to Laos).
3. To ensure the responsible harvesting of teak, plantations have been established across the world in Asia, Africa, and South & Central America. At Arthur Lauer, we are proud to say that our teak furniture is made from this sustainably harvested teak.
4. Teak has a high natural oil content that enables it to resist cracking, rotting, splitting, termites, and other borer insects.
5. In addition to its natural oils, teak’s dense grain helps it combat harsh elements such as rain, snow, hail, heat, and humidity.
6. Teak has been used in ship building for centuries because of its durability, beauty, and unique ability to prevent rust and corrosion when in contact with metal. In fact, teak is still used today in the manufacture of yachts.
7. Teak originally made its transition into outdoor furniture when old ships were no longer seaworthy. The ships’ decks, which were still in excellent shape, were dismantled and made into teak furniture.
8. There are teak benches in parks across England that are nearly a century old.
9. After several seasons outside teak furniture will develop a graceful silver-gray patina. The patina is actually the teak’s natural oil that has risen to the surface and been oxidized by the sun’s ultra-violet rays.
10. Teak’s durability and elegant appearance, combined with its long history of use in luxury applications, give it an unparalleled prestige factor. (This may not technically be a scientific fact, but it’s true nonetheless!)

What do optical illusions, jokes, or television shows have to do with teak furniture? Not much, but we don’t need to talk about outdoor furniture every day. Every Friday I will attempt to show you something interesting that most likely has nothing to do with teak, but should be a nice way to start your weekend.

Now here’s an interesting optical illusion. For it to work, stare at the center crosshairs and move your head towards and away from the computer screen. You’ll see that the images appear to rotate. Sometimes when you just look to the side or relax your eyes a bit, you’ll notice the circles moving as well.

Until next week, where we’ll be discussing the unique properties of teak that make it the perfect material for outdoor furniture.

Spring is upon us!

Personally, I can’t get enough snow. I love the way it looks, I love the way it smells, I love the clean, crisp air it brings. Nothing puts me in a finer mood than 12 inches of snow on the ground and more falling from the clouds.

Professionally, I hate the stuff. I’m doing back flips that the warm weather of Spring is here. Since we’re in the teak furniture business, and most of our customers use our furniture outdoors, snow is our professional nemesis. It reduces the amount of furniture we sell and prevents you from cooking, dining, swimming, lounging, gardening, sleeping, and just plain living outside. So I’ll say a quick thank you to Mother Nature for this timely change of seasons, and move right into what you should be doing right about now to prepare your teak patio furniture for your seasonal migration outdoors.

You will still want to clean your teak furniture once a year simply to remove such things a sap, bird residue, pollen, and other natural remnants. Well, fortunately teak is a very low maintenance material that is easy to clean. Simply spray Olympic Deck Wash onto your teak furniture with a garden sprayer, wait five minutes, and then spray it off with a garden hose. Done. Your outdoor furniture will now take on an ivory finish that will weather back to the silver-gray patina in a few months. (For more difficult stains I suggest trying water, Murphy’s Oil Soap, and a soft bristle brush.)

If you use furniture covers, clean them off with soap and water (spraying them down with an everyday garden hose will work just fine). If you put away your covers for the next nine months without having washed them, you may get some unpleasant mildew growth when you pull them back out of the garage next winter.

It bears mentioning that while furniture covers work well in keeping outdoor residue at bay, teak furniture does not need to be protected from such elements as rain, sleet, snow, or heat & humidity. Teak is an incredibly dense-grained wood with a high oil content that helps it repel the weather without any finish or need to cover it or bring it inside for the winter. Just leave your furniture outdoors, and in about a year it will develop silvery gray patina that provides the distinguished, well-known look of finely aged teak. But the truly remarkable characteristics of teak are a subject for another day. I push on.

If you have any of our all-weather cushions or throw pillows, you have several options available to you. If they were under furniture covers then there is nothing to do except sit down. If you left them outdoors with your teak furniture (like I do) then you should give them a good cleaning to remove any dirt that has built up. To clean the fabric, first brush off loose particulate, and then clean briskly with a rag using water and a mild natural soap. Water temperature should be no more than 100° F, as acrylic fiber is sensitive to temperatures at that level. To remove stains that this washing process does not address, use a fabric spot remover. If you have any Arthur Lauer cushions or throw pillows, you can also contact our customer service department for additional recommended cleaning solutions.

However, if you don’t want to leave your cushions and pillows outdoors at all, shelter them in a dry enclosed area or use one of our teak Jefferson Storage Chests, which should keep them relatively dry throughout the seasons.

Lastly, enjoy. You’re done. That’s it. Finito. As I’ve said ad nauseum (at least that’s what my wife tells me), teak furniture is incredibly low maintenance. Especially when you consider the fact that not only is it easy to clean, but you never need to drag it indoors, and it will literally last for decades.

Thanks for tuning in, and I’ll see everyone again on Friday. Oh yes, the answer to last week’s riddle.

Riddle: A boy was born in Boston, Massachusetts to parents who were each born in Boston, Massachusetts. Neither the boy nor his parents have ever left the state, but the boy is not a U.S. citizen. How is this possible?

Answer: The boy was born in 1770 before the Declaration of Independence. Thus there was not yet a United States to be a citizen of.