outdoor living Tag

Best Value Rattan Coffee Tables in 2026: Our Top Picks

Best Value Rattan Coffee Tables in 2026: Our Top Picks

The best value rattan coffee tables combine a synthetic polyrattan weave that resists UV and rain, a powder coated aluminium or steel frame, a toughened glass or solid top and a size that suits the seating around it. Tables that tick these boxes last for many seasons in a British garden and look good doing it, which is where real value lies. In this guide we share our top picks by style rather than by name: round glass topped tables, rectangular designs with a lower shelf, rising tables that double for dining, compact cube tables, tables that come as part of a seating set, and natural rattan pieces for garden rooms and conservatories. For each, we explain who it suits and what to check before choosing. We also cover weave types, frame materials, care and winter storage, and answer the questions we hear most often about keeping rattan looking fresh year after year in changeable UK weather....

The Hanging Egg Chair Boom: UK Search & Sales Trend Report 2019-2026

The Hanging Egg Chair Boom: UK Search & Sales Trend Report 2019-2026

The hanging egg chair earned its place in UK gardens because it solves problems conventional outdoor seating does not: a single enclosed seat that works on limited hard standing, gives visual privacy from overlooking neighbours, and earns its space in a short season. Furniture in Fashion publishes no search volume or sales trend figures for the period, because we hold no verifiable public dataset that would support them and we do not present our own commercial data as evidence. Our analysis covers what actually decides whether one of these chairs works: the frame footprint of roughly 100cm to 120cm plus swing clearance that buyers consistently underestimate, the difference between static and dynamic load when suspending from a beam or joist, and why the cushion rather than the frame is the component that fails first in British weather. Siting, shelter and cushion storage guidance is included, along with the reason a frame set on lawn rarely stays level for a season....

Garden Privacy: Survey of 2,000 UK Homeowners on Overlooking & Screens

Garden Privacy: Survey of 2,000 UK Homeowners on Overlooking & Screens

Garden privacy in Britain is a problem of sightlines rather than walls, and Furniture in Fashion sets out the geometry in this 2026 report. Most overlooking comes from upper floor windows, which a boundary fence of any legal height barely affects, so the effective measures are screening placed close to the seating, planting and overhead cover. We state plainly that no survey fieldwork was carried out and report no homeowner attitude figures. The analysis covers the planning rules that genuinely apply, including the 2 metre general limit for fences and gates under the General Permitted Development Order 2015 and the 1 metre limit beside a vehicular highway, alongside the high hedges provisions and the absence of any general right to a view in English law. A comparison table weighs fences, slatted screens, planting, pergolas and parasols on what they block, wind behaviour and upkeep. Seating placement and container planting complete the guidance....

Planter Size Guide: Minimum Volumes for 40 Common UK Garden Plants

Planter Size Guide: Minimum Volumes for 40 Common UK Garden Plants

Furniture in Fashion's 2026 planter guide argues that container size is the single largest control a gardener has over performance on a UK patio, balcony or terrace, because it governs root volume, water reserve and thermal stability. Rather than publish litre requirements for named species, which no verified dataset available to us supports, the guide teaches sizing by root behaviour: fibrous rooted bedding and salads want surface area at around 20 cm to 25 cm depth, fruiting crops need 30 cm to 40 cm for water reserve, and shrubs, climbers and small trees need 40 cm to 50 cm or more for both roots and ballast. It explains why small pots fail in short dry spells, since water reserve scales with volume while loss scales with leaf area, and why grouping containers reduces both stress and workload. Weight when saturated, unobstructed drainage and material behaviour complete the practical picture for balconies and decks....

Gazebo Waterproof Test: Hydrostatic Head Results for 25 Canopies

Gazebo Waterproof Test: Hydrostatic Head Results for 25 Canopies

A gazebo stays dry only when fabric resistance, seam sealing and roof geometry all hold at once, and a strong fabric specification on its own guarantees nothing. In this 2026 analysis, Furniture in Fashion explains that hydrostatic head is a genuine outdoor industry measurement expressed in millimetres, but that no independent published UK comparison of garden gazebo canopies exists, so the report contains no ratings and no rankings. It identifies the three points where canopies actually leak: stitched but unsealed seams, corner and eyelet fixings where stress and water concentrate, and any section where water has pooled and applies sustained pressure. Pooling is described as the defining failure in British conditions because rainfall here is persistent rather than dramatic, and the remedy is geometry rather than fabric. The report provides a construction checklist covering seam treatment, pitch, tensioning, corner reinforcement, venting, frame material and anchoring....

The UK Garden Bar Boom: Search & Sales Trend Report 2019-2026

The UK Garden Bar Boom: Search & Sales Trend Report 2019-2026

The garden bar earned its place in British gardens because it makes a garden usable on an average day rather than a good one. In this analysis Furniture in Fashion explains why a sheltered counter with storage at the point of use extends outdoor time more effectively than open seating, and why its narrow footprint against a boundary suits small plots that cannot spare space for a full dining set. The report contains no search volumes or sales figures, since no public UK dataset tracks the category and we do not publish our own commercial data. Instead it sets out the dimensions that decide whether a bar is comfortable, including the difference between 90cm counter height and 105cm bar height and the matching stool seat heights, alongside permitted development considerations for outbuildings, the Part P position on outdoor electrics, and the three water related faults that shorten a timber bar's life....

Ashtray Sales as a Smoking Indicator: UK Data vs ONS Smoking Rates 2010-2026

Ashtray Sales as a Smoking Indicator: UK Data vs ONS Smoking Rates 2010-2026

Ashtray sales cannot function as a smoking indicator, and this 2026 report from UK furniture retailer Furniture in Fashion explains why rather than constructing an index that would look like research and would not be. The Office for National Statistics publishes Adult Smoking Habits in the UK, the authoritative national prevalence series, and no comparable public series exists for domestic ashtray sales, so there is nothing defensible to compare it with. The report sets out the conditions a product must meet to serve as a behavioural proxy and shows the ashtray failing every one: irregular durable goods purchasing, buying by non smoking households for visitors, decorative use as glass and ceramic dishes, and improvised substitutes that no retail series can see. It then turns to the consequence of smoke free legislation, which moved the habit outdoors and changed what garden furniture and ash containment must withstand, from wind and rain to scorch damage on table tops....

44 UK Garden Furniture Statistics for 2026: Market, Spend & Garden Size Data

44 UK Garden Furniture Statistics for 2026: Market, Spend & Garden Size Data

Furniture in Fashion has published forty four garden furniture findings for 2026, opening with the admission that forty four verified statistics do not exist: no official UK source publishes garden furniture market value, household outdoor spend or average garden size. The report substitutes specification and editorial judgement, and its central conclusion is that British garden furniture is a space problem before it is a spending problem, with six seat dining sets routinely bought for patios that cannot take the chairs when pulled out. Findings are grouped into space and layout, material and durability, and storage and maintenance, covering clearance behind chairs, table edge allowance per diner, the behaviour of aluminium, teak, synthetic rattan, coated steel and resin in a damp climate, and the winter storage constraints that decide what a small garden can hold. Published ONS analysis of access to private gardens in Great Britain is referenced as context....

A Brief History of the Parasol: From Ancient Egypt to the Cantilever

A Brief History of the Parasol: From Ancient Egypt to the Cantilever

The parasol is among the oldest furniture forms still in daily use, and for most of its history it was about rank rather than comfort. Furniture in Fashion traces the object from the shade canopies held above rulers in ancient Egyptian and Assyrian relief carving, through the ceremonial umbrellas of South Asian and East Asian court tradition, to the early Chinese collapsible frame that turned a carried canopy into portable furniture and the Japanese wagasa craft that refined it. In Europe the parasol became a dress accessory before the waterproofed umbrella split away from it. Our analysis then explains the engineering argument that produced the modern cantilever: every significant development has been an attempt to hold a canopy over people without putting a post among them. We compare centre pole, tilt, cantilever and wall mounted formats by load path, base requirement and the seating each one suits. Base weight and canopy colour guidance close the piece....

Garden Lighting & Light Pollution: UK Guidance & Wildlife Data

Garden Lighting & Light Pollution: UK Guidance & Wildlife Data

Direction, not brightness, decides whether garden lighting is a problem. Furniture in Fashion, the UK modern furniture retailer, reviews published UK guidance on obtrusive light and wildlife alongside the practical realities of lighting a British garden, and finds that almost every complaint traces back to light allowed to travel beyond the boundary. The report sets out the legal position, including the statutory nuisance provisions of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005, and summarises guidance from the Institution of Lighting Professionals, the Bat Conservation Trust and CPRE. It explains why shielding, aiming and warm colour temperatures at or below 2700K matter more than wattage, why timers and motion sensors reduce emitted light more effectively than dimming, and why leaving a dark corridor along a boundary hedge is the single most useful ecological decision a garden owner can make....