EOFY Sale - up to 40% off Sitewide!
Outdoor furniture has to work harder than anything else in your home - UV, rain, humidity, pool splash, and people who aren't always gentle with it. Here's how to choose pieces that handle all of it without sacrificing how they look.
Outdoor furniture has to work harder than anything else in your home. It lives outside year-round, handles UV, rain, humidity, pool splash and the kind of treatment that comes with regular use by people who aren't always careful with other people's things. It has to look good in photos. It has to still look good two summers later. And it has to be comfortable enough that people actually want to be in it.
That's a long list of requirements, and most outdoor furniture only meets some of them. Here's how to make sure yours meets all of them, and which pieces from our outdoor range we'd recommend for different kinds of spaces and uses.
Before you think about specific products, it's worth understanding the four things that actually determine whether outdoor furniture earns its place - or ends up faded, cracked and disappointing after a season.
This is where most people underestimate what's at stake. An indoor fabric left outdoors will fade and absorb moisture within a season, it simply isn't built for sustained UV exposure, humidity or the repeated wetting and drying that outdoor use involves.
A cheap outdoor fabric will handle things a little better, but not by much. The difference between a quality outdoor fabric and a poor one becomes obvious after the first summer, not the first week - in how the colour holds, how the fabric feels, and how well it stands up to everything an outdoor environment throws at it.
All of our outdoor pieces are made from Olefin - a solution-dyed synthetic fabric engineered specifically for sustained outdoor exposure. Solution-dyeing means the colour is locked into the fibre during manufacturing rather than applied to the surface, which gives it significantly better fade resistance than standard outdoor fabrics. Like all outdoor textiles, it will show some colour change over time with prolonged direct sun exposure, but it holds up far better than cheaper alternatives and maintains its integrity for years with basic care. It's also water-resistant and handles chlorine and salt water without degrading.
If you want to understand exactly why fabric choice matters so much for outdoor furniture, our Olefin explainer goes into detail, it's worth a read before you buy anything outdoor.
Outdoor fabrics are rated for UV protection on a scale, and the rating matters more than most people realise. A fabric rated Grade 4 or 5 will show significant fading after prolonged exposure in a fully exposed outdoor space. Our outdoor range is rated Grade 6 to Grade 8 - the highest end of the scale - which is why our pieces hold their colour in conditions that would deteriorate lesser fabrics quickly.
If your patio or pool deck gets full sun for most of the day, check the UV rating of anything you're buying. It's one of those specifications that only matters after it's too late.
Double-stitched seams are the baseline for any outdoor furniture that will see regular use. Single stitching fails faster under UV and repeated wetting and drying, the thread degrades before the fabric does. All of our outdoor pieces are double-stitched throughout.
Removable, washable covers are the other non-negotiable for outdoor furniture used regularly. Sunscreen, food, pool water and general outdoor grime are facts of life - a cover you can zip off and wash is worth significantly more than one you can't in the long run.
Outdoor spaces have a tendency to make furniture look smaller than it does in a showroom or product photo. A piece that looks generous indoors can feel modest on a large deck or beside a pool. The general rule is to size up for outdoor use, you'll always be glad you did, and you'll rarely wish you'd gone smaller.
The right piece depends significantly on what you're working with - a pool deck has different requirements to a balcony, and a large entertaining area needs a different approach to a private reading corner. Here's how we'd think about it.
Pool decks and large outdoor entertaining areas need pieces that are durable under maximum UV exposure, handle pool splash, dry quickly, and look good when you have people over. They also need to work well in multiples - a single lounger on a large pool deck looks sparse, while a considered arrangement of two or three pieces looks resort-quality.
The Cojelo Suave Sunlounger is our most architectural outdoor piece - its elongated profile looks genuinely designed when placed alongside a pool, and two Cojelos positioned along a pool edge create an instant resort moment without any effort. Grade 8 UV protection, fully water-resistant, and it transitions inside on cooler evenings without looking out of place.
For a pool deck where you want genuine double seating, the Chill UV Lounger is the piece built for it - our outdoor double seater with Grade 8 UV protection, sized generously for two adults, in colourways including the stripe options that photograph beautifully in outdoor settings.
A patio that hosts people regularly needs comfortable seating for more than one or two people - the kind of setup where guests settle in and stay for the afternoon rather than perching politely. Bean bags are the outdoor entertaining piece that most traditional patio furniture fails to deliver: genuinely comfortable, easy to rearrange, and relaxed in a way that rigid outdoor chairs aren't.
The Bora Bora Chair is our outdoor entertainer's piece - roomy, comfortable, and available in stripe and solid colourways that look great grouped together. Most of our customers who buy for entertaining purposes buy two or four Bora Bora Chairs together for exactly this reason, the same way you'd buy a set of outdoor dining chairs. Pair them with our Outdoor Ottoman as a central table for drinks and you have a proper outdoor entertaining setup.
Not every outdoor space is designed for a crowd. A private corner of a garden, a shaded balcony, a quiet spot away from the pool - these spaces work best with one well-chosen piece rather than a matched set.
The Lachlan Lounger a lounger, but with a back angle that works for reading and quiet afternoons as comfortably as it works for full relaxation. It's the piece for an outdoor space that needs to be genuinely useful across different moods and times of day rather than purely a sunbathing lounger.
Balconies and compact outdoor areas have specific constraints - limited space, often weight restrictions, and no pool to design around. Bean bags solve the space problem better than most outdoor furniture categories because they're lightweight, easy to move inside when not in use, and don't dominate a small space the way rigid outdoor settings can.
A single Bora Bora Chair or Isla Sunlounger on a balcony with a small side table creates a proper outdoor seating moment without overwhelming the space. Both are light enough to bring inside easily when the weather changes or when you want the balcony clear.
The good news is that quality outdoor furniture requires less maintenance than most people expect - particularly pieces made from Olefin. A few straightforward habits keep them looking good for years.
Rinse after pool use. Chlorine and salt water are fine in small doses - accumulated over weeks without rinsing, they can slowly degrade even durable fabric. A quick hose-down after pool use is all it takes (for pool floats only).
Wash covers regularly. All our outdoor covers zip off and machine wash. Do it at the start and end of summer at minimum - more often if the pieces are used heavily or by people who apply a lot of sunscreen.
Store undercover in winter. Olefin handles the elements well, but anything that lives fully exposed outdoors year-round will weather faster than something that gets a little shelter in the off-season. A garage, shed or outdoor storage box extends the life of your pieces considerably. Make sure it is completely dry before storing away. And don't story in a room that has a lot of moisture.
Let them dry fully before storing. Don't pack away a wet bean bag - the filling needs to dry through properly before storage. Our drainage systems make this faster than you'd expect, but give it time.
For more detail on caring for outdoor pieces, our outdoor care guide covers everything worth knowing.
We supply outdoor bean bag furniture to resorts, hotels, holiday rentals and commercial venues worldwide. If you're furnishing a commercial property or ordering multiple pieces, our Trade Program offers trade pricing, priority support and guidance on which pieces suit your specific space and guest profile. It's worth a conversation before you place a large order.
Browse our full outdoor range or explore our poolside collection specifically. And if you're not sure which piece suits your space, get in touch - we genuinely enjoy helping people work this out.
If you want inspiration for how to style an outdoor space rather than buying guidance, our post on the outdoor lounge room is worth a read - it covers the design and lifestyle side of outdoor living in more detail.
No articles found for this tag.
