Enjoy your garden by selecting and maintaining your furniture…

With summer around the corner, you’ve bought some new garden furniture to impress but have no idea how to maintain it… Today we are going to be talk about how to properly maintain your garden furniture so you can keep it in good nick for next summer!
These tips and tricks are suitable for all garden furniture made from plastic, hardwood, softwood and metal materials. The maintenance of a piece of furniture completely depends on the furniture’s material. In this guide we will be talking about the four most common kinds of material.

Plastic furniture by far is the easiest to maintain. Just make sure to clean it regularly to avoid water marks on the plastic. This should be especially done with light coloured or white plastic furniture to avoid discolouration or yellowing of the plastic.
The only downside to using plastic furniture is if it is left out in the cold weather or very hot weather for extended periods of time it can become brittle, so it is best to store it immediately after using them with a protective cover for those cold winter months!

Hardwood furniture is one of the more complex materials to clean and maintain but it is also the more durable. Some of the most common of the hardwoods would be teak, courbaril, roble, cumaru, iroko and eucalyptus, what are all contain high levels in natural oils, making them weather resistant!
The only maintenance that is required on is to wash off any dirt or algae that may be accumulating from it being in a damp space. This should only need to be done a couple times a year if the wood you have bought is of good quality!
A good piece of advice would be to keep the wood away from anything damp to avoid algae from growing on the wood. A protective cover would be a good option.

Softwood furniture is the cheaper but more demanding version of hardwood furniture and requires a bit more attention in the winter months. To keep softwood furniture in good nick it requires regular checks and cleaning with a recommended wood cleaner. Do not use soap and water because this can remove a layer of protective paint or preservative.
Preservative should be added at least twice a year to make sure that the wood stays the same colour and keeps to the same shape as softwood tends to warp when exposed to moisture too often.

Metal furniture needs to be cleaned about once a month, checking for rust and repair it by removing any rust and applying rust preventing paint. Metal furniture should be repainted every 1-2 years to make sure the weather barrier is well maintained. It’s also a good idea to keep a bottle of WD-40 in the shed if it has any joints or fixings that require free movement. I would include oiling the joints in the monthly cleaning of the furniture.
If you follow these simple tips and tricks then you will be able to keep your garden furniture going for years to come!

Wheelie Bin Storage

One line that constantly sells well for us is our line of wheelie bin storage units.

Compared to some of our other more traditional ranges, these storage units are somewhat new to the market as the use of wheelie bins and recycling boxes has only been introduced in the past decade or so for a majority of households.

wheelie bin storage

Gone!!

Long gone are the days of our round dustbins which was the only outlet for all of our daily refuse. The modern UK household now has to separate all of its rubbish in to plastics, glass, paper and food waste. This is all collected separately and in a majority of cases is re-used, recycled and pressed in to service again. This does wonders for the environment  as we all know, as a nation we are all much more aware of our surroundings and are taking better care of it to ensure a better future for all.

bin storage

Times past

Lets not forget our bin men either – long gone are the days where they had to struggle and heave huge metal bins around, our new ones have wheels and are so much easier to transport around.

Mixed Recycling Containers

Modern wheelie bin storage

The average household now has two large wheelie bins and three smaller boxes in their outdoor space as well as a smaller  lidded box for food waste. Not exactly the most attractive features in a garden they can unfortunately  quite often take up a lot of space. One obvious solution to this is to hide them away from view which is where our wheelie bin storage units come in to play.

Double Wheelie Bin and Recycling Box Chest

One bin and four box combination

We have several models available to buy while many of them also have different combinations to choose from (as we all know different size families have different amounts of recycling containers allocated to them). An example of this is the Double Wheelie Bin and Recycling Box Chest which is available in either a one bin and four box combination or a two bin, two box.

garden storage

Predator!

They are all manufactured in  wood and many have the option of being locked if required, this is more to keep out unwanted predators more than for actual security but is effective none the less. You would be surprised just how cunning the chap on the right can be when trying to get in to a bin!

With a decent sized range available we are confident that we will have something for everyone, click here to see the whole range. 

The Taylors Journey May 2012 – May 2015.

It is now just over three years since we took over the running of this company.

The previous owners of the business had changed their focus, wishing to explore new avenues and made the heart wrenching decision to sell Taylors Garden Buildings on. We purchased the website in May 2012 and immediately set about catching up on deliveries which had unfortunately been set back by a few days due to the handover.

The early days were very fraught to say the least, the phones were literally ringing off of the hook with customers chasing orders (news of the change over had spread very quickly and many people were now panicking that they had lost their money and would not be getting the items they ordered). The first thing we had to do was to contact all of our customers to inform them of the situation and give them some peace of mind. Some people requested to have their money refunded while a vast majority were happy to continue with the order they had made and wait just a little longer for the delivery to take place.

It was a stressful time for all in the Taylors office, starting a brand new job is never easy but to literally hit the ground running is even less so. Gradually we began to make progress and get ourselves caught up. We are pleased to say that all orders got sorted out  and, thanks to all of the patience and support from our customer base, we were soon able to move forward and begin doing what we had aimed at doing in the first place – selling garden buildings.

This was where it started getting exciting, with the old orders sorted and completed we could now focus on moving the business forward and start to repair the Taylors name in the marketplace.

Ready Built Shed Range

Ready Built Shed Range

One of the first big moves we made was securing a contract with a very large shed manufacturer who would deliver and install their garden buildings all for one price. This is of course UK Garden Buildings, they are the suppliers of our Ready Built range which has gone from strength to strength and is now one of our biggest selling lines.

Woodmeadow Garden Centre

Woodmeadow Garden Centre

The second major step we took was to purchase a local garden centre. Woodmeadow had been trading since the early 1970s and the previous owner had decided to move on to a new chapter in life. This came at a perfect time for us, it was obviously meant to be! With the purchase of Woodmeadow we now had a display site to showcase some of the buildings, this not only made us a more physical presence but it also enabled us to offer a more personal service by allowing us to meet our customers face to face.

Since those early days Taylors has continued to grow and now, three years later, we have revived the Taylors name and once again become a more prominent force on the internet.  We have a much bigger team  now too, some people have come and gone down the years, some have moved to different areas of the business while others have decided on a different career path, but we now have a team that is bigger and better than it has ever been!

Due to the increase in staff we re-located our sales office to bigger premises, this was our third big step in the growth of our business and happened in July 2013.

Thanks to our social media platforms (Facebook in particular) we have had a lot of positive feedback from our customers – some of those customers by the way were with us in the beginning and have stuck by us since then.

A huge thank you to them for giving us the chance to grow and standing by us!

In the past three years we have managed successfully to breathe fresh new life in to an ailing business and restore it to former glories, we have done the same to a local garden centre which has seen a dramatic increase in sales and now has a solid loyal customer base.

Movember 2012

Movember 2012

We even managed to do our bit for charity too, long term followers of our blog will remember that we did Movember in 2012 and raised over £1600.00!!

We have many plans for the future which will be mentioned on here as and when they happen – there are still exciting times ahead so watch this space!!

Not Just For Grown-ups……

It’s not just the grown-ups who can find something at Taylors.

As well as a vast range of Summerhouses, Sheds, Garages and Storage Solutions we also have a range of Playhouses, Games and Vehicles for your little ones. It may well be the ideal time to start looking for something for the summer to keep your little ones amused, especially as the dreaded summer holidays are rapidly approaching!

My KIngdom

My kingdom

One of my favourite things when I was little was my wendy house, it was  very flimsy looking back (it was basically just a push together plastic framework affair with a cover over the top). It wasn’t the grandest of houses but it did have a plastic window and pair of flaps acting as a doorway (it was very similar to the one pictured on the right except mine was vinyl – with the added luxury of a real chimney I might add!). I loved it and spent a lot of time in it with my action figures recreating key scenes from the latest Doctor Who episode or Star Wars movie (that little yellow house was everything from the TARDIS to Jabbas Palace on the inside at various times!).

How times have changed!

We have “Wendy” houses on our site but long gone is the need to weigh them down with rocks and stones on a windy day, also long gone is that searing temperature inside that shot up in the summertime as the hot sun penetrated the plastic covering. The houses available nowadays are often made of wood and have all the luxuries such as real doors and windows, felt roofing and even, in some cases, stairways leading up to a second level (oh to be a child again!).

Swiss Cottage Playhouse

Swiss Cottage Playhouse

We have many Playhouses available on our site starting from as little as £200, we have designs that range from the classic apex style with forward facing window and door all the way up to Swiss Cottages and Dutch Barns. Many of our playhouses can be painted a colour of your choice (quite often more than one colour if need be). We have playhouses that are raised up on a platform with balustrades and ladders which provide safety and are ideal for wannabe pirates or space invaders!

The Jailhouse 8x8

The Jailhouse 8×8

We have a very nice range of Ready Built Playhouses which are very popular, for a set price you can have your building delivered and installed all in one go (depending on your location). This takes all the stress out of frantically trying to build the house while being hassled by a mini Darth Vader who is desperate to get inside his new kingdom to plot universal domination!

These buildings are long lasting , durable and guaranteed to give many years of fun and excitement for your children. Buying one of these can be  a real investment but not just in financial terms, money can increase and decrease in value all the time.

Childhood memories? They are always priceless!!

Childhood memories

Childhood memories