Years ago, on a trip to Paris, we spent a whole day sightseeing and ended up completely shattered. We found a bench, or rather a chair, in the Jardin du Luxembourg and just sat there for a while, doing nothing. It sounds like a cliché now, the tourists who fall in love with the green garden chairs, but it's exactly what happened. We didn't know the chairs had a name at the time. We just knew we didn't want to get up.
Years later, when it came to furnishing our own garden, there was really only one place we were going to look. What we didn't quite get right was the size, not the first time round anyway.
Why the Luxembourg range isn't just garden-centre furniture
Created in 1923 by Paris's own parks department for the Jardin du Luxembourg, and still made for the city's public gardens today, the chair was reworked by Fermob in 2004 with designer Frédéric Sofia, who swapped steel for lighter, rust-resistant aluminium and reintroduced it for private gardens. That became the Luxembourg range, now sold in more colours than we could ever reasonably choose between.
What it's actually like, three years in
We didn't buy the biggest table straight away. The first one we bought was fine for up to six people but any more than that was a real squeeze. Eventually we sold it and bought the next size up.
The first table was the 143 x 80cm, with a parasol hole in the middle. What we have now is the 165 x 100cm, noticeably more room round the edges, but no parasol hole at all, which I've never quite understood. In hindsight we probably should have gone straight for the 207 x 100cm rather than doing it in two steps. It was a big purchase for us, one of those "we've talked about this for years, let's just do it" moments.
Colour took some negotiating too. My husband wanted to go properly bold, a different colour for every piece. I said no, and the first table went in Deep Blue, matching the Storm Grey chairs and stools closely enough to feel coordinated. When we upsized to the table we have now, we changed course anyway and went with Cactus, Fermob's grey-green, so what started as a matching set has ended up a contrast we didn't really plan. Looking back, I'd be bolder now. It's a nice combination, just a fairly safe one, and Fermob make colours that deserve more confidence than we gave them.
We also have two low chairs in the same grey-blue, which sit near our garden sofa.
One of the two low chairs, Storm Grey, near the garden sofa
There's also a bench in bright yellow that lives at the front of the house. The bench is the one place my husband's original instinct won, and it's honestly lovely, the first thing you see arriving at the house.
The bench, in bright yellow, at the front of the house
The whole set lives outside year-round, no cover, whatever the weather throws at it. Three years in, it still looks genuinely good. No rust, no real fading, nothing worse than the occasional wipe down when it's looking a bit dusty. The one addition since buying it all is a set of cheap outdoor cushions from H&M, £7.99 each.
The one thing worth knowing before buying
Size up more than feels sensible at the time. It's tempting to buy for the table you'll usually need rather than the table you'll occasionally want, but the occasions are the ones you remember, and a table that's slightly too big is a much smaller problem than one that's slightly too small.
Was it worth it?
Yes, without hesitation, even with the slightly clumsy route we took to get there. At today's prices the 165 x 100cm table alone is £1,095, with the 207 x 100cm we half wish we'd bought at £1,229. Either way, it was a proper investment, not an impulse buy, and three years of daily outdoor use with zero maintenance beyond a wipe down has more than justified it.
The next chapter
It's coming with us to the new house, and for once our slightly-too-cautious first instinct might actually work in our favour. The garden there is smaller than what we have now, so the mid-size table we ended up with, rather than the largest one we half wish we'd bought, may turn out to be exactly right after all.
Still worth keeping?
- Durability
- Excellent. Three years fully outside with no cover, no rust, no real fading, barely any maintenance beyond a wipe down.
- Design
- Genuinely love it, though we'd choose the colours more boldly if we were starting again.
- Would we buy it again?
- Yes, no hesitation.
- Best for
- Anyone who hosts bigger groups regularly. Size up more than feels necessary.
