How to Clean Your Patio Umbrella

With the warmer weather coming, it is time to take out some of the outdoor furniture.  We have owned our outdoor patio umbrella for almost ten years.  It wasn't looking so good anymore.  It was covered with green mold and mildew from years of being outside.

First thing I did was remove the fabric from the umbrella.  Yep...you can remove the fabric.  The posts of the umbrella slip into pockets of fabric underneath the umbrella.  I simply unscrewed the top of the umbrella and then slipped off the fabric.

Then I filled an old garbage can with a solution of one cup of bleach to each gallon of water.

Then we submerged the umbrella fabric in the solution.  After it soaked for fifteen minutes, my husband took a scrub brush and scrubbed off the dirtiest parts.

Then, while it was wet, we put the umbrella back together.  It's important that you put it back together while it's wet...otherwise it will shrink when it dries and it will no longer fit on the spokes of the umbrella.  Once it was back together, we hosed off the umbrella to get any traces of bleach off.

While we had the bleach and water solution available, we also scrubbed all of the outdoor furniture to remove all of the green on it as well.

The furniture and the umbrella look like new.  My kids actually thought we bought a new umbrella.   So if you have an umbrella that's looking dingy and dirty, try cleaning it using this method.  You will be amazed at how you can make it look brand new again.

Also, my Craigslist chair makeover was featured over at Furniture Flippin.  

Hope you will stop by to check it out.  

-Judy