How Garden Furniture Can Extend Your Living Space

Turn your garden into a living space with garden furniture. Here’s how!

Photos By: Living Etc.

There’s no doubt that Garden Furniture allows you to make the most of any outside space. This may be a lawn, patio, decking or just a balcony, and by adding furniture you will fully realize its potential to become a valuable extension of your home.

Traditional or contemporary in design, you have a wide choice of materials, with different types of timber, rattan, stainless steel and all-weather fabrics all proving popular when creating a particular ambiance or complementing the existing landscape.

Today’s garden furniture is very much similar quality to the equivalent sofas and chairs you’ll find in any lounge and, because it has to deal with adverse weather conditions, it’s probably more robust and made from highly durable materials.

The sheer range of garden furniture is impressive to say the least, with online garden furniture suppliers offering table and chair sets for dining and entertaining, benches and loungers for relaxation along with an incredibly diverse range of other items.

Garden Sofas and Ottomans

Nothing illustrates the beneficial impact that high quality furniture can have on your garden than all-weather sofas and day beds. There’s no better way to relax and enjoy the company of friends, than on these luxurious pieces that can be left outside throughout the summer months.

Corrosion resistant metal frames are used for strength and these are upholstered with artificial wicker, rattan or easy to clean fabric. Individual items can be used on their own while other piece are joined to form attractive and very useful corner sets. Accessories include deep cushions, stools, dining and side tables in a similar style.

Dining Sets

Eating and entertaining in your outdoor garden is so much better when the chair you’re sitting in is stylishly designed from teak or another hardwood, shining corrosion free metal, wicker, rattan, or even decorative moulded resin, and the matching table is similarly eye-catching perhaps with a glass or ceramic top.

Two chairs and a modest table make a lovely bistro set, benches and seats are able to accommodate more guests while individual chairs around a circular, square or long rectangular table create a comfortable and elegant ambiance which adds to your enjoyment of the food, drink and fellow diners.

Picnic Tables

The simplest of these very popular practical pieces of outdoor furniture represent a dining set at its most utilitarian, a central rectangular table and two facing benches offering a place to enjoy simple refreshment.

But even the humble picnic table can have a makeover and there are now versions with substantial railway type sleeper benches or four quarter circle seats with perhaps a slatted back rest surrounding a round table. Children’s picnic tables are also available with one showing its versatility doubling as a sandpit.

Garden Chairs and Benches

Weeding and mowing are hard work, and single Chairs and Benches provide useful resting places around the garden, while Companion Seats with a compact middle table, where refreshments or books can be placed, are perfect to share the time of day with someone else.

Again there is a huge range of sizes and styles, timber blends ideally with the landscape and metal will develop an attractive patina. Granite and colourful sandstone will also make an impression, and there are resin examples that boast storage space. If you enjoy sitting in the shade of a tree why not try a circular bench that will enclose the trunk of your favourite apple or oak.

Parasols

To complete your outdoor dining experience, a parasol might be required if the sun proves too intense, and the familiar circular umbrella designs that sit in the middle of the table have received contemporary remodelling in terms of both design and materials.

Cantilever parasols in a range of colours can now stand away from the table, reaching over to provide shade under a canopy that can be as much as 4 mtrs square. There are also ‘sail’ type canvas sheets that cover a wide area between two aluminium poles, and a curtain can be fitted to prevent any cool breeze from spoiling your enjoyment of the summer.

Hammocks

Finally, Hammocks or swing seats might represent the most comfortable way of relaxing in the garden. With shading from the sun you can swing back and forth on a seat supported by chains or tangle free rods. These aren’t children’s swings, they are high quality and distinctively designed for adults who want to unwind in the most satisfying way possible.