Wicker Patio

The look of white wicker patio furniture is truly a thing of beauty, taking an ancient style and human art inspiring a laid-back classical feeling with the simple elegant of white. Most wicker patio furniture that you’ve seen is a brown or dark brown bamboo color, and this is due to the natural color of wicker which can be made from a variety of materials including rattan and dry cane or even bamboo. The look. while a true classic, can look a bit tired and overdone due to its prevalence in patio furniture all over the country. If you’ve got the perfect white picket fence dream house or the metaphorical equivalent, why not go with white wicker patio furniture that will look great with your fence and unify the inside and outside of your home? It gives you the same classic feel of wicker patio but adds an extra touch with the white.

The best thing about white wicker patio furniture is that it can go with just about any color. While brown, beige, and tan are all neutral colors, they simply don’t go as well with other colors as well as white. With white wicker, you’ll be able to buy patio furniture covers in any color that you like or add in some decorative outdoor cushions to spruce up the look without even trying hard. Most outdoor covers are made from cloth that is treated to be weather proof or a rubber canvas material. Consider a simple black and white color combination, pairing black furniture covers with your white wicker patio to bring a modern sophistication to your outdoor patio. Or pair it with bright colors to really liven up the area.

The patio is the perfect place for you to really express yourself to the world. While your friends and occasional visitors will be impressed with your interior decorating skills, most people won’t be able to admire it. However, the patio is an outdoor area visible to your neighbors and all passersby. Use the opportunity to bring out your personality and design tastes by making your patio your art canvas. Start with white wicker patio furniture as the base and you’ll find the finishing touches to be quite easy. Lounge chairs are perfect on any patio and is really the best place to lounge on a warm day so you can enjoy the outdoors. Add some outdoor furniture mats or pillows to really make the chair comfortable and you’ll soon find yourself outside for longer than you will be inside! Add a white wicker side table so you can put your drink, book, or reading glasses.

Other considerations: a complete wicker dining table and chair set or wicker picnic table. If your patio deck is large enough, these things will bring out the rest of your family so you can enjoy the patio together. A dining table and chair set gives you a wonderful place to have a nice meal outdoors if you are so inclined and a picnic table is great for a family BBQ day.

When you think of classic style furniture, wicker patio furniture often springs to mind. You’ve most likely grown up with wicker furniture your entire life so you know it’s at least as old as you are. But how old is wicker patio furniture really? It actually traces its roots all the way to ancient Egypt. When ancient Egyptian kings needed furniture to be built so they could sit along the Nile River way back in 3000 BC, they actually used wicker chairs. In fact, everything they used was made of wicker, from beds, tables, to baskets.

During Cleopatra’s time, when the Egypt was in contact with the Roman Empire through Marc Anthony, wicker furniture was then introduced to greater Europe. At the time, the wicker baskets that the Egyptians weaved were made from intricate dark colors and many Romans liked the new style over their own baskets. Though they toned the colors to white and beige to their liking and improved the weaving, it retained much of its unique look and styling.

Later in time this type of furniture reached China around the 1400s. This weaving was popular for use in keeping and preserving writing scrolls. The only modification the Chinese made were to make the wicker weaving even thinner and smaller. During this time wicker furniture also spread to the rest of Africa, who used it instead for armor and shields rather than for furniture because they found it to be quite strong. Because of the utilitarian use of wicker, African wicker weaving was coarser and not as decorative.

Wicker was also introduced to the Americas by early European settlers on the New World continent. Since this was during the time of the Victorian age, the wicker designs became quite elegant and white and beige colors were popular. Wicker was used in such storage items as trunks and suitcases.

Fast forward to today and wicker patio furniture remains a steadfast remnant of ancient history present in patios all across the world. In fact, wicker is the most popular type of patio furniture out there. It has gradually shifted from being made of cane, rattan, and even bamboo to man-made synthetic wicker that is made from plastic. Today, there are a variety of traditional wood wickers and even hybrid wickers that use both wood and plastic material. It has a classic look that traces its origins to many thousands of years ago. You have our ancient human ancestors to thank for the wicker furniture sitting outside your patio today.

When it comes to patio furniture, there are a number of needs to be met in order to build furniture that will endure the patio environment. Besides wicker, there are also other types of patio furniture including wrought iron, aluminum, marble, and wood. Wicker is inexpensive, easy to maintain, and weather proof and for these reasons it is the most popular material. Wrought iron will rust and the other materials are simply not as easy to work with. There are a number of different wicker materials to suit a variety of design purposes. You can even add outdoor pillows and seat cushions to make your wicker furniture more comfortable. Throw in a few potted plants on your wicker patio and you can enjoy the same feeling Egyptian pharaohs got while lounging outside next to the Nile.

The type of furniture to use on your wicker patio largely depends on how you plan to use it. If you’re into entertaining and dining outside with a barbecue grill setup, then you may consider a long table. If you just want to sit outside to enjoy the weather, sip a coffee and read, then the wicker patio furniture best suited for that may be a simple chair for sitting and small table for drinks or books. It is important to specifically buy outdoor wicker patio furniture as you do not want to be moving indoor furniture inside your home whenever the weather turns sour, unless you like the exercise.

If your patio is very small, then a big table is probably not going to be suitable. Otherwise, if you can accommodate around six to eight people that is usually enough for most outdoor dining occasions. Having a couple of extra wicker chairs at the ready just in case you need them can be helpful too. This is the bare minimum for setup for outdoor patio furniture in this use scenario. Another factor to think about is the size of your family. Obviously you will need to able to seat your entire family plus any extra guests. Having enough available chairs to cover an additional two to four people will save you from the embarrassment of not being able to seat all your guests when you are hosting a barbecue on your patio.

If you’ve figured that you may really need more table seating, then you can buy more than one outdoor table. Getting a table that seats a dozen people may be slightly excessive and unwieldy. It’s hard for guests to talk comfortably to one another as well. In this case, two equal sized tables might be a better solution. You can break the crowd up into smaller groups for more intimate conversation. Depending on your wicker patio size, you can also get one larger table and one smaller table.

Cooking outside on the patio itself will probably require a dedicated table alone just to place your foodstuffs. While your barbecue grill may have some limited shelf space, a table will greatly increase the amount of food you can have around and make grilling much easier. If you are shorthanded, this is especially important as you don’t want to be walking in and out of your house’s kitchen back out to your patio just to get food transferred over.

Though a wicker patio table hardened with resin is beautiful to look at, if you are using it for your grill table then you might want to get one made of metal instead. This is because, while the wicker table is quite durable, it will not stand up to the scorching heat emanating from the grill or the piping hot food that comes out of it. Heat of this kind will warp wicker patio furniture, making it lopsided and uneven.

In fact, try to keep all wicker patio furniture as far away from your grill as possible. Warping isn’t so much an issue as comfort for your guests. Imaging sitting two feet away from a barbecue grill while trying to enjoy a meal out on the patio on a warm summer day. The grill can make your guests uncomfortably hot. You also never know if your grill might tip over, burning something or someone on its way down. It’s just a safe rule in general to follow when laying out wicker patio furniture.

On a different note, if you just plan to keep things simple and want to lounge on your patio, then a pair of sun chairs with accompanying side tables is perfectly suited. This way you and a partner can enjoy each other’s company while you chat or read outside. You could share a table between the wicker chairs but having separate tables reduces the chance for spills and other mishaps. They also aren’t that much more expensive, so if your patio allows it then spend the extra money. Plus, they are easy to care for and maintain so an additional piece won’t really be much more extra work.

You can see that a little advance planning before buying the furniture for your wicker patio makes the entire process much smoother. When you know what you will be using your patio for you are able to buy according to your needs so you don’t end up with a haphazard mix of wicker patio furniture that aren’t unified. Enjoying your wicker patio starts off with just a little good planning.