Outdoor Living New Materials Help Casual Furniture Remain Attractive While Facing The Elements

Outdoor furniture is big, big, BIG right now, and it’s not just the overscaled pieces being made for large decks.

It’s big because two revolutions sprang upon us in the ‘90s.

First, we have embraced outdoor life, enlarging our gardens, expanding our patios, adding sun rooms to our houses and weaving indoors and outdoors together.

“Outdoor furniture used to be just to set on the deck,” says Jim Sica of Jimmies Rustics of Michigan.

“Now it’s migrating into the lawns and gardens, into little porchy areas. It’s even set out by the trees, as garden accents.”

It’s migrating indoors as well, says Margo Smith, head of the Casual Furnishings Council.

“A lot of the new products are so attractive, people buy a dinette set and use it two years in the kitchen.” Then, when they move or redecorate, she says, “they don’t have to give it away. They move it out of doors.”

Second, outdoor furniture is suddenly big because the past five years brought a technical revolution in the materials that can live outdoors.

Even at low prices, technical progress has changed the outdoor styles. You now find a flood of new inexpensive chairs, tables and lounges molded from resin, a tough member of the plastic family. Molded plastic chairs can be bought for less than $10 each.

These are virtually indestructible and often quite handsome.

But the biggest revolution is at higher levels, says Sica: “Middle-priced buyers are shifting to upper-middle or high-end furniture.

“The people in the middle are going up.”

Up is a good place to go if you can afford it, as shown by these new materials and hot styles.

Outdoor fabric. Today we can keep fully upholstered sofas and chairs outside in the yard, thanks to new fabrics called “solution-dyed acrylics” from a company called Glen Raven.

These look like natural cotton or linen, but they shed water and hold their vivid colors through years of outdoor exposure.

The new fiber is so good it can be used to copy virtually any indoor fabric - solids, stripes or prints. It can even be woven into dressy Jacquard fabrics.

And for those who can’t afford this high-end acrylic, there’s a similar new fabric of olefin, in the nylon family. This looks nearly as good. It just doesn’t hold color so fiercely.

Metals. If you like an antique, ornate look - evoking France, Italy or New Orleans - you’ll like the intricate styles being cast in aluminum. Many look like museum pieces. Good brand names include Windsor Designs, Bellmar, Mola and Telescope.

Wrought iron also is booming. Windsor Designs, Brown Jordan and Woodard are among good brand names.

Mary Ann Chila, manager of Casual Concepts in Rochester, Mich., attributes the fresh surge of metal furniture outdoors to its recent boom as accent pieces indoors.

The metal finishes have gotten more sophisticated, notes Chila. Where once they were glossy, now they are layered and textured, simulating natural materials.

“So we have bronze, eucalyptus, sandstone, limestone and marble,” she says.

In wrought iron, a table and four-chair set might start at $400. At a high-end company like Woodard, it might average $800. A new aluminum set called Infinity from Brown Jordan - limestone finish over cast aluminum - costs about $1,500.

Wood. Another direction that “up” has taken comes from our fascination with English and East Coast garden styles - the large, heavy wooden pieces that remind us of English garden furniture or New England estate furniture.

Usually it’s built of solid, natural teak, which weathers to a silver finish. Or it may be painted with hard, white enamel. Among good, high-end brand names are Kingsley-Bate, Jensen Jarrah and Weatherend.

A 54-inch Kingsley-Bate bench might cost about $500, a dining table $800, a side chair, $290.

Wicker and rattan. Wicker and rattan, which

once would have rotted if left outdoors, are now being made weatherproof. Lloyd Flanders, Brown Jordan and Lane Venture are good brands.

MEMO: The Casual Furnishings Council has a free, 80-page color booklet on outdoor furniture. Call (800) 852-2144, anytime. Or your local casual furniture dealer may have copies.