Household Hints By Rosemary ~ Cleaning Up Outside

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We noticed that our outside garden furniture hadn't survived the latest family gatherings and barbecues without suffering the use. Little fingers, barbecue sauce, ketchup and mustard can sometimes be a sorry mix with patio chairs and cushions. Although getting older, we hesitate to buy new as the sets are still very sturdy and structurally good. So, off to do a little research on how to give them all a good cleaning and here is the result. Make sure you test all the cleaning suggestions and solutions first in an inconspicuous place before going ahead with any full job.
Weather tolerant fabrics can be cleaned with any good fabric cleaner, follow the manufacturer instructions. Or, fill a bucket with a gallon of warm water, a tablespoon of borax and two tablespoons of a good laundry detergent. Use a soft brush to scrub the fabric, then rinse off with a garden hose, stand up to dry or toss them over the clothesline. Once dry, you may want to spray the cushions with a fabric protector. With our set, the cushions are weather hardy, because they are older I used a “bleach pencil” on the stain spots, filled a large plastic garden barrow with the cleaning solution, soaked the cushions and ran a scrub brush over them. Then rinsed them and hung them up to dry. They are now nice and clean (smell good too).
Aluminum chairs can be cleaned with warm water, dish detergent and a plastic scrubber or fine steel wool. Rinse off the aluminum and dry it. You can go a step further and protect the aluminum with a coating of good quality car wax, but don't get it on the fabric or webbing.
White plastic furniture is cleaned with warm water and about two capfuls of automatic dishwashing detergent; use a double sided soft/scrubber sponge. Let the solution sit for about 20 minutes or so then rinse it off. The dishwashing detergent has mild bleach in it that will help clean the plastic. A friend used one of the super cleaner sponges and found that the above solution worked just as well and cost less.
I wish I had canvas coverings, it's so durable if you can remove the canvas it can be washed in a washing machine and replaced on the frames partially damp to stretch the material back into shape. If it can't be removed, use a soft scrub brush, warm water and a bar of Fels-naptha* (yellow bar) soap, scrub back and forth on the canvas, don't worry about working up a lather. Rinse off with a garden hose and leave out to dry. This will also remove any mildew; a good cleaning method also for awnings and umbrellas.
Just note that if the fabrics are coloured, leaving them out to dry in the sun and using a cleaning solution may cause some of the colour to fade. Seems like a chore, but working outside in the warm weather with an excuse to have the hose on and incidentally managing to take advantage of the occasional cooling spray isn't such a bad job.