Help! I was given some perfectly usable garden chairs. I think they are teak. They are very heavy and have absolutely no sign of rotting on them and as I recall, teak is the wood used for garden furniture.

Anyway, when I received them, they had clearly been painted at one stage. So I thought if I just paint them again, they may actually look pretty smart. They still work perfectly as occasional garden chairs and are actually in very good condition, if not somewhat aged. Probably cost the original owner a pretty penny.

So I sanded them all thoroughly back as much as I could and then gave them a couple of coats of garden paint and they looked fantastic.

My girlfriend even made some nice cushions for them. And we thoroughly enjoyed using them for the summer. However, two years later and two winters later, they look again exactly the same as they did, when I originally received them (see pictures).

I bought good quality paint and gave them a couple of coats and British weather is miserable, but I still think they should have not deteriorated back to horrible so quickly.

So how on earth do you actually paint teak garden chairs, so that the paint lasts more than a few years?

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Although, now I am thinking about it, maybe the paint I was originally seeing when I received the chairs was not original to the chair. If you know what I mean?

Maybe someone before me thought the same and just failed too... Maybe originally they weren't painted at all, and everyone who gets them thinks they can paint them. But this still doesn't answer the question.

Why can't you paint teak garden chairs?

Confused
Kyle