Taking paint off of old, cast iron garden furniture is an unhurried process.  I don’t have access to a sandblaster so it is most done with a much abused set of wood chisels and a drill-powered wire brush.  The latter is not as useful as you might think…  It is useful, but you simply cannot get it into all the little nooks.

I think we have all encountered the chic patio furniture patterned on the grape vines and pretending to be Victorian.  Well, this is the real stuff, and I am dying to encounter the replicas now.  Why?  Because the originals have leaves with actual indented veining, grape stems with the sort of vertical ribbing a real vine has so some of the vines are faceted, tiny cutouts, and other extremely sharp detailing.  All of which had been obscured first by some vivid green paint, and then a hideously heavy layer of white paint.*  Encasement in the extreme.  But I’d like to know if the replicas were patterned on clean originals or painted/rusted originals…anybody ever looked?

Now to decide should it be green or white, if green which green. The jury is still out.

*yes they are lead, what else?  Brain…what brain! ( I do take suitable precautions, but not to OSHA/CT standards)