refurbish that withered teak wood chair and give it a new look and safe a lot of money

I take it, you all have figured out by now that I can be a bit of a save the environment nutter! So here is my appeal to you to not kick your old withered looking teak wood garden chair into the land fill and make it grow even bigger! Rather, spruce it up! And if I can´t make you see the impact on the environment let me show you the economical impact it will have on your wallet!

This teak wood chair was purchased in 2001 and never got any extra love. It was parked on a balcony all year around. I just checked online, a similar one would now cost new 149€. So if you instead buy a can of teak oil for 12.99€ (that will last for many chairs and a table) and invest 2 hours of your time I come up with the following calculations:
149€ minus 12.99€ = 136,01€
Divided by two hours of work it comes to 68,05€ per hour of work that you safe.

Now there are not many people that make that hourly rate at work AFTER tax has been deducted (and in some countries pension and state health insurance).

So here is the big question: How many hours do you have to spend at your day job to pay for one chair? Would you rather go work this many hours in your day job to be able to buy a new chair? Or invest roughly 2hours of your spare time and have an old chair look like new and safe the environment? If you still say you want to shop for new ones, than please don´t trow your old ones on your local landfill mountain, but either put them on craigslist or your countries equivalent. Or donate them to good will, cancer research shops or red cross shops. You´ll be doing a double good deed, not just make someone else happy but safe the nature!

Have I convinced you?
If yes, here are the instructions on how to spruce up your old teak wood chair:

First you brush it off with a steel brush. Get all the moss, dirt, bird poo and other grossnesses off.

this is what the old withered chair looked like before I got
started

Next step get a small bucket of water and a sponge.  I reuse mine! I always throw them into the hot wash after a few days, and once they reach the end of life time, after what feels like a gazillion of washes, I use them for projects like this. Start scrubbing off the grey layer on the teak wood. It comes off fairly easy. The water gets filthy pretty fast, therefor you will need to change it several times. I don't add soap to the water as it will dry the wood even more and the grey layer came off just fine without. There is no need to stress the wood even more.

This is what those sponges look like after a gazillion of washer cycles! Don´t throw them out, reuse them! Safe money and the environment!

left side is before scrubbing with water, right side after

grey goo needs to be wiped off with a soft cloth before applying the teak oil.  

Clean bits and pieces of the grey goo off with a soft cloth and
now let the chair dry thoroughly in the sun.

Fully cleaned and nearly dry chair. 

Once it is dry get gloved up and another sponge and start applying the teak oil. Read your teak oils instructions, mine could get a second layer after only 10 minutes. So by the time I finished the chair I could start again at the top as the 10 minutes had passed already.

refinished teak wood chair

Most teak wood furnitures should be happy after 2 layers. But this chair hadn't seen any love in 16 years so I gave it a third layer. After 10 minutes I wiped off all excess oil that hadn't been soaked up. This is an important step as it will leave staines if you don't do it or leave it too late.

Now doesn't it look like new? Wasn't´t it well worth the time?

Now stow it away safely to let it dry for 48 hours and after that you can park your derrière on it again and enjoy a cuppa coffee.
BTW teak oil is not made from teak wood, it is just a product made to preserve the wood! It usually contains linseed oil and can be used to preserve other woods, too! Wich will be one of my next projects! You can find out more about teak wood and teak oil here.