Pressure Washing My Outdoor Cushions For The First Time in Two Years + A Video

When we remodeled our primary bedroom a couple of years ago, we added beautiful outdoor seating to extend the space to our backyard. It’s been great! But, I’ll admit that I’ve neglected doing a deep cleaning for two years. Rather, I’ve done no cleaning. Mostly because it’s just so easy to care for outdoor furnishings in our sunny climate. They sometimes get food spilled on them, and they do get rained on, but the San Diego sunshine often dries out the moisture and bleaches out the stains in a matter of days. Or so I thought.

With summertime upon us, and wanting to host a couple of friends or family for a safe socially distanced outdoor hang out, our outdoor spaces are getting more attention. I took a close look at the white cushions and immediately realized, “oh, I guess our San Diego climate isn’t keeping these things as perfectly clean as I thought because these things are filthy!” I never take them inside in the winter, and I’ve never cleaned them. It shows.

Oof. I mean. They were still usable, but the two years of wear started to show. Even though our climate is really dry, we are only a few miles from the coast, so the fog rolls in during the evenings and mornings when the temperatures cool off. It turns out things can mildew even in San Diego. Oops.

So enter, my trusty pressure washer.

I bought this simple electric pressure washer a few years back (this picture above is from 2016 when I used to paint my nails - who even is that person?!) It isn’t a pro-level machine for industrial cleaning, so I almost didn’t buy it. I figured I’d just rent the best of the best power washer whenever I needed it. But, I’m so glad I bought this lil’ guy rather than renting one whenever I need one. It’s nice to have it in the garage whenever the desire to clean comes to me. And believe me, it’s frequent!

I mean, wowza! You don’t always know how dirty things are until you really clean them.

Want to watch some satisfying cleaning clips? Here’s a minute of that:

One-Minute Of Pressure Washing Satisfaction Video:

My power washer comes with a soap attachment so I can pre-soak everything with suds, then hose them off. At first I didn’t think it was necessary so I went ahead with the power washing, but I can definitely say the soap helped speed up the cleaning process.

It comes with multiple attachments to determine how narrow or wide a water stream you want on each item. I went with the 15 degree attachment for all of my cleaning. It didn’t cover as much ground as a wider tip, so it took more time, but it was really focused which provided a concetrated clean.

My big tip for using tools that you only use seasonally, especially ones with a particular power-on/off routine, is to write the steps on the machine! Instead of grabbing the owners manual to re-read the fine print, or instead of pretending you’ll memorize it, just write it down. And write it on the actual unit. This power washer, like many others, has steps that they want you to follow in order to safely use the machine. So, I wrote the step-by-steps for turning it on, and then turning it off. It saves me a good ten minutes of wondering why water is spitting out all over, and saves me a trip to the emergency room putting the nozzle on when it’s already powered up.

Safety tip: pressure washers are dangerous, so never put your hand by the nozzle, be aware of where your toes are, and never ever point it at an animal/human/plant/glass, or anything fragile. These things mean business.

I’ll leave you with this one last before-and-after cleaning photo which is simply amazing.

Will I do anything differently to keep things cleaner? Probably not. We don’t have a ton of garage storage space and our climate is so mild that I have a hard time even telling the difference between fall, winter, and spring, so I wouldn’t even know when to pack them up. Maybe I could get furniture covers, but eh. I like pressure washing! So, maybe I’ll just deep clean them every year. That sounds like more fun than having them covered or stored away.

If you’re in the market for a pressure washer, I highly recommend this one. It’s electric so when I use it on sunny days it’s powered by the sun (we have solar panels) rather than nasty fossil fuels. It’s user friendly with simple attachments and usability. It connects to a household plug and home garden hose (this hose is my favorite because we leave the pressure on all the time and it never ever leaks). It comes with everything you’d need in it for just $150. And it has an optional soap attachment for deep cleaning with your preferred detergent. Admittedly it isn’t the most heavy duty machine, so we could certainly get a faster/better clean out of a more industrial pressure washer, but I don’t really need that. This one does the trick and is perfect for impromptu cleanings.

Don’t forget to watch the satisfying one-minute long cleaning video!