Garden Bench Garden Furniture
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Rowlinson Rustic Seat
by worst_trip The Rowlinson Rustic Garden seat is a small garden arbour that despite its relatively budget price - it's available, for example for £109 from Homebase (plus £6 delivery) and for the same price at B&Q - is quite an attractive piece of garden furniture. The product does however require some home assembly, which has turned out to be ... so onerous that I've knocked one star off the rating from what would otherwise have been a four-star dooyoo review. We purchased this particular arbour partly because of the price; a dispute with a party-wall-sharing neighbour meant that the free-standing trellis we'd planned to set up as a support for a wisteria plant against the (extraordinarily ugly) shared wall never got past its planning stages. The trellis looks to be a good shape and size to support our plant, and at £115-odd the price of the arbour was only slightly more than the cost of having the trellis fitted by a fencing specialist. Secondly, we were attracted by the size of the arbour - it's 232 cm at the highest point of the 'arch' but only 56cm deep and 154cm wide, so it won't take up too much of the garden. The arbour is delivered as a series of semi-made-up wooden panels, which come embedded in a near-impenetrable matrix of thick, shrink-treated plastic sheeting secured with package-tie tape (the stiff yet flexible stuff they use to break into cars with). Despite all the plastic 'protection' our arbour when it arrived had a number of loose parts, also splits in the wooden posts, and also signs that it had been stored in damp conditions - weird green blotches of wood-preservative dried in small crystallized patches all over. As is most garden furniture of this type, it's made from FSC-certified, pressure-treated wood (and comes with a 10 year guarantee apparently, though there's no literature included on how we would go about claiming back on that) and although this piece of furniture is going to be outside in all weathers, it would have been nice for it to have started out in as-new condition at least! The instructions for assembly are limited to one side of a sheet of A4 paper - a good thing in the sense that not too much carpentry is require to set it up, but not so good in terms of the instructions being difficult to locate in the first place (we thought for a long time there was nothing included, before noticing a small folded sheet secured to the bottom of one of the legs of the arbour). Though the arbour comes with all the fittings required to build it - ie L-shaped metal braces and lots of long, metal screws - the screw-holes aren't pre-drilled or marked where they should be placed, which makes assembly of this arbour much less straightforward than it would be for a 'proper' piece of flat-packed furniture. This lack of markings / screw holes wouldn't be a problem for anyone with the slightest trace of home-DIY nous, but unfortunately when it comes to 'free flying DIY' me and my partner - although we're very good at building up flat-pack stuff (if I say so myself) - lack even the most basic carpenter-ing ability. This means that assembling this arbour has meant us digging out our old spirit-level, tape-measure, set-square and power drill - as we're going to have to mark up and drill the holes for the screws ourselves, and this introduces a massive margin for error. This isn't what I bargained for at all. Given the state of the arbour when it arrived - ie with splits in the wood, and some of the decorative elements fallen loose - plus the unexpected difficulty we've encountered in putting it together, I wouldn't give this more than three stars out of five. It's good value and attractive, but it's been more trouble than I bargained for setting it up. I also have to mention the confusion / general uselessness of the Homebase home delivery department where delivery of this arbour was concerned. I got a call from Argos - who apparently handle Homebase's deliveries of this item - to say it would be delivered 'sometime during daylight hours' on June 10th (they couldn't be more specific). This was a bit confusing to begin with: a different company from the one I'd dealt with contacting me to say that 'something I'd ordered over the internet' would be on its way. Then on June 10th after waiting in all morning for the delivery, and then watching the big Argos delivery lorry merrily sail past our house without stopping, it took me four calls to Homebase customer services to find out what was going on: I got disconnected on two of the calls, told by the third assistant that 'the best he could do was arrange a call-back within 48 hours' (this for an item that I was specifically waiting at home for which was supposed to be delivered THAT DAY). On the fourth try, when I'd given up trying to find out about the order and phoned in instead saying I wanted to complain about Homebase customer services, a very helpful lady finally made some enquiries and found that the delivery wasn't coming via Argos after all. (The arbour was, predictably, delivered about 20 minutes after I made the final call). So, Homebase customer services on their home delivery service: zero out of ten for most of that. Read the complete review |
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Wilkinsons Bench Verdigris Finish 8 Slat
by worst_trip We were looking for a small, preferably wooden garden bench of a size that would fit under a decorative metal trellis / rose arch we'd just installed in the garden. It was a surprise to me that most garden benches available in the shops - wooden and otherwise - seem to be of a standard minimum size of about 126cm wide, which made them ... too large to for our proposed 'arbour' arrangement. The great benefit of this Wilkinson's bench from our point of view is its size - at 112cm wide it's just small enough to fit into the space we have available for it. It was the only bench we found of this size on the market this year (having tried the usual DIY shops, Ebay, Homebase and Argos) and it has sold out from Wilkinson's to my knowledge twice - it was out of stock when I first located the product on their webpage, but I registered my in it interest there and in less than a week I was emailed to say that new stock was available. It is currently sold out again - so this seems to be a pretty popular item - but they may restock in future. Ordering this online, I had this delivered to our local store and picked it up to save the approx. £5 delivery costs. This delayed our getting the bench by about a week or slightly longer; we were notified when it was sent from the depot, but it took another 3-4 days to turn up at the shop for us to collect so I think their time predictions for how long it's going to take for a shop collection are a bit of an underestimate. There was good communication throughout and the local shop rang us to say when our bench had arrived, and as we weren't in any particular hurry to get it, I have no complaints about the ordering process, which was a lot better than the service I've received buying online from other high-street shops. Having said that, even flat-packed, this small bench was still such a large and bulky item that I wished I'd spent the extra fiver and got it delivered to my house -since the bench barely fitted in our car. As I bought this online I had only seen a picture of it before it arrived. After assembly it looked surprisingly small at first, almost like a child's seat - but having bought it for its size, I can hardly complain about that - and though the seat is lower to the ground than I expected it is all right to sit on. (Which means that this bench might not be a good choice for older people - a couple of my older relatives have trouble getting up from very low seats and this is a particularly close-to-the-ground one.) It's a little fiddly - with lots of nuts, washers and bolts - to assemble but not too difficult though the instructions, being the typical written-by-someone-whose-first-language-is-not-English printouts you'd expect to find accompanying such a budget-range, made-in-China item, are not as clear as they could be. The quality of the wood and metal work is acceptable, not brilliant, but since you're paying only £20 for this bench, it's quite all right for the money. I'm not sure the finish on the wood (honey coloured varnish) is going to stand up well in the rain, or over winter and I think if we want to keep this in useable condition, we'll have to get a cover for it - at least in winter. And goodness knows where the Chinese hardwood used in its construction comes from; personally I'd rather not think about it as I suspect it's not from any kind of FSC-certifiable or otherwise sustainable source. I knew what I was buying when I purchased it however, so this is no reflection on the item itself. The instructions for assembling the bench are marked 'this item is for occasional use only' and it does indded seem to be of rather flimsy constuction. We had a bit of trepidation, first sitting on it - but it's been robust enough in the week we've had it so far. Where we've put it it's somewhat obscured by the trellis and overhanging greenery and it looks great in that that setting - if it was out on its own in full view it might not appear to such impressive advantage as this is on close inspection a noticeably budget item. Excellent for our purpose, however. Read the complete review |
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B&Q Frame Picnic Table and Benches
by nikkisly As soon as the weather warms up, my thoughts always turn to eating outdoors. I forget that I have a fair skin which hates the sun and I ignore the fact that I am allergic to insect bites.Instead I visualise long, romantic summer evenings spent watching the sun set over the sea from my garden, with a barbecue and a bottle of chilled wine. ... In these visions, I have always seen myself sitting at at table - the sort with the bench on either side that you see in picnic areas throughout the country. However, since both Devon and Cornwall County Councils have taken the precautionary measure of concreting theirs into the ground, and since this type of garden furniture has always proved prohibitively expensive, it has so far been a case of "Dream On!" Until a couple of weekends ago, that is. I happened to see a television advert for B&Q which said that they were selling them at a special offer price of £19.95. I decided there and then to buy two - one for what we laughingly call our 'orchard' and one for the paved area around my fishpond. Since my husband was taking a trip to the Midlands, I sent him off with strict instructions to buy them. He came back without them. The particular store that he visited was a large B&Q which actually had one assembled and on display. Next to it, they had a similar picnic bench/table, costing £50 which was, according to my husband, of far superior quality. (The words "cheap rubbish" were mentioned in reference to the £19.95 table!) Not one to have my dreams thwarted, I went to a smaller B&Q myself two days later and looked at both tables. Although I didn't actually see them assembled, I decided to go with my original plan and buy two of the 'cheapies'. Having parted with my £39.98, I then found that the benches were made from natural wood, so I was forced to spend a further £6.95 on weather proofing. As it turned out, one can was insufficient to give both benches the recco mmended two coats, so I ended up buying a second tin. The A frame picnic table and benches come in a flat pack, which, as I soon discovered, was about three inches too long to comfortably fit into my fathers small saloon car. We managed to jam them in eventually and soon had the flatpacks open on the floor of the garage at home. The first step in assembling them is to coat all surfaces with a "suitable exterior wood preservative" and allow them to dry before applying a second coat. This proved to be a messy job and we now have a very fetching bright blue garage floor, but once the second coat was dry, I grabbed the electrical screwdriver and prepared for action. The packaging contains two instruction leaflets. The first explains how to care for your furniture,suggesting that it is protected from severe weather and stored inside during the winter months. The second is a component list with pictoral and written instructions on how to assemble the units. All the necessary components (screws,bolts,nuts, washers, table and seat slats, braces, supports and uprights) proved present and correct and the instructions were very clear, so it was with some confidence that I embarked on my project. Sadly, this confidence proved to be misplaced. My first problem came when I realised that the paint had totally covered the handy stamps which B&Q had so thoughtfully provided to help me differentiate between 'seat' and 'table'.(To my surprise, on closer examination of the packaging, I realised that I had unwittingly chosen the very same wood preservative that B&Q showed on their illustration of the completed table, so they must have foreseen this problem occurring.) Not to be beaten, I applied (feminine) logic to the problem, figuring that something that had to support the weight of a person was likely to be sturdier than something which only had to bear the odd wine bottle or plateful of carbonised sausages. Hence I reasoned that the thickest slats were likely to be the seats. Problem two arose when using the electric screwdriver. The units are made from pine which is a soft wood and I found that the powerdriver was causing the screws to split the wood. Accordingly, I left the last few screw turns to be done by hand and made sure I didn't over tighten them. Another problem solved. The first table was soon ready for use. In total, it took about 20 minutes to assemble from scratch, excluding painting and drying time of course. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy! Problem three became evident when I started to assemble the second table. Two of the uprights had been cut too long by about 2", which meant that the table simply didn't fit together. Had I been closer than 45 miles away from B&Q, I might have been tempted to take it back. As it was, I called in my own personal DIY expert (Mr nikkisly) who soon rectified the problem with a couple of swift saw cuts - still muttering about "cheap rubbish". This left us with a couple of untreated edges to paint, and also meant that some of the pre-drilled screw holes no longer lined up. The tables are now in use and, so far, haven't collapsed. Once constructed they don't appear as flimsy as they do when the components are first removed from the box and, whilst I'm not stupid enough to believe that they're going to last forever, they appear more than adeqaute for now. Cheap and cheerful would be the best description. They seat two adults on either side - possibly three VERY close friends - and are very comfortable. They also seem perfectly proportioned - the seats and table are the right heights and the table is sufficiently far from the seats to allow you to sit down without too many contortions. As an added bonus, they are made from FSC wood, meaning that the wood has been harvested from ecologically managed commercial woodlands. The moral of the sto ry seems to be the familiar "you get what you pay for". For £19.95 (plus wood treatment) I have a serviceable picnic bench which even my husband concedes looks nice. It was simple to construct (given the problems with the dimensions of table two), the instructions were clear, concise and, dare I say, practically foolproof. It gets 3*'s from me - and would have got 4*'s had table two not been cut out by a drunken apprentice on a Friday afternoon. Now all I need is a spectacular sunset, a healthy dose of insect repellant, a bottle of chilled white wine and six friends to share them with me. Any volunteers? Read the complete review |
Garden Bench Garden Furniture |
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Garden Furniture / Type: Benches - Aluminium is an ideal material for outdoor furniture. It is strong, non-rusting, and retains its good looks through blistering summer suns, drenching thunderstorms, and vigorously romping children. |
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Type: Hammock / Garden Furniture / Swing - This timeless design combines elegance and strength. The product comes with a 12 month warrantee and includes the natural wood, self-assembly swing bench plus cover. |
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| Garden Bench Garden Furniture Recommendations 1 2 back | ||
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