atlantateakfurniture.com Blog

Besides being beautiful, teak furniture is also very durable and low-maintenance. This makes it a very appealing product to its customers.

Potential customers can be wary of buying teak furniture for fear that they will need to spend countless hours sanding and cleaning the furniture to maintain its elegance.

This is simply not true.

In fact, premium teak furniture (like that from Atlanta Teak) requires hardly any maintenance at all.

A yearly cleaning is about all that is necessary to remove dirt, stains and grime.

One of the easiest ways to clean your teak furniture is by mixing one part laundry detergent with five parts warm water. Then, using a firm brush, simply give the furniture a “once over” with the brush and you will notice that it really brings out the beauty of the wood - restoring it almost to its natural appearance.

There are teak cleaners available for sale online and at many furniture stores, but at Atlanta Teak we have found this laundry detergent mix to be both effective and less expensive.

At Atlanta Teak, all of our teak furniture ships knock-down (KD) in corrugated boxes that are made from recycled materials.

“Corrugated” means that our boxes can be broken down and recycled. All you have to do is remove the tape and Styrofoam, and your city’s recycling service should pick up the box and take it away.

Matter of fact, most furniture companies ship their furniture KD and in similar corrogated boxes. What does that mean? You got it - these boxes can be recycled as well!

Next time you order a piece of furniture online, be sure to recycle the box so that it can be used again in the future.

If you were to do a Google search with the terms “teak furniture” or “outdoor teak furniture”, you would probably find yourself inundated with a slew of companies claiming to sell the best Grade A teak wood furniture on the market.

Now, some of these companies may actually sell very nice furniture. Unfortunately though, many do not and those are the ones you want to avoid.

Here are two critical things to check:

1) Does the company have a showroom or warehouse where you can actually drive your car up and see the furniture first-hand?

Teak furniture is an expensive investment, and if you are in a position to spend the money on it you want to be sure you are getting what you are paying for. If a company does not have any place for you to look at the furniture (and I mean really look at it) then there is a good chance they are afraid to expose its poor quality.

High-end teak furniture should be nearly uniform in color, and free of knots. The wood should have an extremely smooth finish, and the joints should all fit tightly and be free of any kinds of wood fillers. Furthermore, teak furniture that is sold as “new” should not already have a coat of oil or paint on it - a lot of times this is an attempt by the manufacturer to hind imperfections in the construction and quality of the furniture.

So before placing an order online, check to see if there is any place for you to view the furniture before buying. Even if you live far away and can’t make it to the showroom, at least you know that the furniture is displayed in front of customers and the owners are proud to show it…this can lead to a comfortable purchase.

2) Similar to number one, don’t buy from any store that doesn’t actually inventory the product. Many of these online teak furniture stores are merely that - websites created by people that are acting as a broker and selling product from another manufacturer. These types of online businesses are run by people with limited to zero experience in the furniture industry - many of them may not have ever assembled a single piece of teak furniture in their lives. They are merely brokering it out to customers via the internet and trying to act as if they have a relationship with the manufacturer (which many times they do not other than they get them to drop-ship orders).

To be safe, email the teak furniture companies that you find online and ask them if they have an inventory of product stored somewhere. If a company has estimated delivery times of greater than 5 to 7 business days, chances are they do not have any teak furniture on-hand.

Nothing makes a beautiful outdoor set of teak or wicker furniture appear nicer than a set of Sunbrella cushions. Not only to these cushions provide added comfort to the seats, but they also give the furniture an elegant appearance.

Sunbrella is the number one name in outdoor cushion fabrics for several reasons:

ENDURING COLOR Sunbrella colors stay strong and vibrant, even through intense sunlight exposure and cleaning with bleach.

SUMPTUOUS HAND Sunbrella fabrics are as soft and inviting as they are durable.

DRAMATIC EFFECTS Sunbrella is available in hundreds of solids, stripes and textures as well as exquisite decorative jacquards.

WORRY FREE Sunbrella resists stains and fading, so you can stop worrying about your fabric and enjoy your
life.

If you need Sunbrella cushions, look no further than Atlanta Teak Furniture. They can make your cushions in a variety of sizes & colors, and best of all the cushions ship directly to your home. Visit their website at http://atlantateak.com/cushions.html to learn more about Atlanta Teak’s cushion making process.

Many teak furniture owners usually slap on a coat of teak oil at the beginning of each year to “spruce” it up for the upcoming spring & summer seasons. They learn of this maintenance technique from teak furniture companies that lack the knowledge of their product to give them good advice.

At Atlanta Teak Furniture, we are highly opposed to using teak oil on our teak furniture products (or any for that matter). Teak is naturally resistant to mildew and mold. However, once teak oil is applied to the furniture it now provides a surface for mildew and mold to grow. Also, the way in which the teak oil reacts to the sunlight causes black spots to form on the furniture as well. Not to mention that the teak oil gives the furniture a darker, unnatural appearance and hides the grain of the wood.

Atlanta Teak recommends that teak cleaner be used to treat outdoor teak furniture. This is a water-based product that can be purchased for about $15 on Amazon.com. It is an extremely easy application, and it gets all of the dirt, grime and weathering out of the wood furniture (it actually reduces some of the silver patina and brings out the natural honey appearance).

So in the future, do what’s best for your teak furniture and choose teak cleaner over teak oil.

A staycation is defined as a period of time in which an individual or family stays at home and relaxes at home or takes day trips from their home to area attractions as opposed to leaving home and going on a traveling vacation.

These days, more families are opting for staycations as an alternative to vacations to save money. This is giving them the opportunity to get to more projects done at the home, and to enhance the overall appearance and value of their homes.

This is leading more families to work on their outdoor areas - creating living spaces outside that resemble indoor spaces. When you are working on your outdoor area, you need to be extra careful about cutting corners and trying to save money because everything that you use will be exposed to the natural elements (sun, rain, snow, sleet, wind). This makes teak furniture a great choice for the outdoor living areas because it requires little to no maintenance and it will last for over 75 years. Not too mention the aesthetic benefits of having Grade A teak furniture on your patio or deck; it is definitely something that will make your neighbors jealous.

Teak is indigenous to Thailand:

Therefore, the trees grow much more naturally, stronger and have a denser grain than teak trees in Indonesia (TEAK IS NOT INDIGENOUS TO INDONESIA, COSTA RICA OR AFRICA). In fact, teak from Thailand has a natural oil content that is 500% greater than teak from Indonesia - this means that Thai teak is heavier and denser, and therefore will perform much better outdoors than anything from Indonesia!

Longer growth cycle:

The teak trees in Thailand are allowed to grow for 45 years, which is the reason for its strong density. In Indonesia, teak trees rarely grow longer than 25 years which is why the color & grain are very light. When seeking the sophistication of teak, you must know that there is a significant quality difference between Thai teak and Indonesian grown teak. There are many grades of teak quality and we have chosen the best quality, Grade A Thai teak.

Sophisticated kiln-drying process:

This is a very important process because it removes moisture from the wood which prevents it from cracking and warping in the future. However, this process is often ignored by Indonesian factories because it takes over 24 days to be completed correctly - actually, many Indonesian factories merely put the wood outside for 2 weeks and label it as “kiln-dried”, which is not correct and results in an inferior product.

In conclusion, teak furniture from Thailand is a higher quality product and will perform better outdoors than Indonesian teak furniture. This is why Atlanta Teak Furniture only uses teak wood from Thailand in all of its furniture.

As a teak furniture manufacturer, we at Atlanta Teak Furniture feel a responsibility to contribute to the
green movement through sustainable practices and recycling. Here are some of the ways that Atlanta
Teak is “Green”:

Sustainable teak: The teak we use in our furniture construction all comes from sustainable and
renewable forest sources.

The benefits of wood:

1. While the raw materials for other products (aluminum, stainless steel, plastic, etc.) must be fabricated
using energy-intensive and chemical-laden processes, our primary raw material (teak) grows naturally
with no need for energy input.
2. Once the useful life of a wood piece of furniture is at its end, the wood will biodegrade in the landfill.

The benefits of teak:

With its high durability (75+ years), teak furniture will last decades longer than furniture made from other
woods. Consequently, fewer trees will be used as it will need to be replenished much less frequently.
Further, although teak furniture is biodegradable, it will be decades before it even needs to be thrown
out and end up in a landfill.

Recycling:

Atlanta Teak recycles all of its cardboard boxes whenever possible, especially on all orders that we
assemble at our Atlanta warehouse.