Applying stain or oil to garden furniture
Learn how to protect and maintain your wooden garden furniture in just two simple steps.
Step 1: Preparation
- Wash the garden furniture
- Rinse carefully
- Sand the wood
- Use a colour renovator if needed
To start off on a good basis - literally - it's important that your garden furniture is clean. You can do that pretty easily with just lukewarm water and detergent. If there's moss on your furniture, you could use cleaning vinegar (not regular vinegar, because that's way too acidic for your wood) to remove it. Another option is to use an outdoor wood cleaner like Xyladecor Krachtreiniger voor alle buitenhout. It could also turn out to be useful to dust off the furniture in advance, removing all loose dirt. After cleaning, make sure to rinse carefully, so as to remove potential product residues.
Next, the wood needs sanding. For new garden furniture, or pieces that are still in good condition, lightly sanding the wood using a small grain piece of sanding paper is enough. If you have older or weathered furniture or if you need to remove old paint layers, for example, it's best to start off with a larger grain size, to sand up to the natural wood again. You can then continue with a smaller grain size to smoothen out the surface. In any case, don't forget to use your duster after sanding! Oh, and for greyed wood, you might want to consider a colour renovator. It works miracles!
Step 2: Treatment
- Apply at least two coats of oil or transparent stain
- Apply at least two coats of opaque stain
- Don't use lacquer
- Use a flat brush
There are a couple of ways in which you can freshen up and/or protect your garden furniture. On the one hand, you could go with oil or transparent wood stain, when you'd like to preserve the wood's natural looks as much as possible.
Or, you could use an opaque wood stain, if you want to add some colour to your garden furniture. We'll also explain why we think you shouldn't use lacquer.
Click on the other tabs for more information.
Oil / transparent stain
Oil and transparent wood stains both penetrate into the wood's surface and help protect it from the inside out. That means the wood will maintain its original characteristics, such as its colour, pattern and nuances.
If you use a colourless oil or stain, you can at most intensify the wood colour a bit, but you'll keep it mostly the same. When using a tinted product, you can make a bigger difference. Think of applying a dark tinted oil to a light type of wood. Yet, you will still always end up with a natural wood colour, be it lighter or darker, instead of a funky colour. For that, you'll need an opaque stain.
Both oil and transparent wood stains can be applied by using a brush, in at least two coats, directly onto the garden furniture.
Opaque stain
Like we said before, you can use opaque stains to add some colour to your garden furniture while protecting the from several weather conditions at the same time.
An opaque wood stain will also still leave the wood pattern visible, but with less nuance compared to a transparent stain.
Just as with oil and transparent stains, you can apply the opaque stain directly onto the garden furniture using a brush. And again, you will need at least two layers.
Lacquer
Thinking of lacquering your garden furniture? Here's why we don't think that's a good idea.
We don't recommend lacquering garden furniture because lacquers will form a completely closed layer over the wood, no longer allowing it to breathe. The risk of the paint chipping off is therefore very significant.
If you want to add some colour to your garden furniture, we advise using an opaque wood stain. It will give you a much more durable and even more gorgeous result!
Stains and oils for garden furniture
Below, you can find everything you need to make your garden furniture upgrade a success.
Is your garden furniture made out of a specific wood type, and are you in doubt about which stain it requires? Then, be sure to check out our paint guide on which stain to use for which wood type.
Preparation
Oil / transparent stains
Opaque stains
Ready to start painting?
In this video by Xyladecor, you're shown how staining your wooden garden furniture with a transparent stain works.
