The community coordinator recently asked someone to recommend a good fence staining company.
As a consummate DIYer, I'm asking someone to recommend a good fence STAIN.
Once upon a time, I was the DIY Master of this stuff, inside and out. I stained and sealed about 50% of the existing wood furniture in our house. I re-stained all the kitchen cabinets prior to selling my last house. I own my own pressure washer (a good one) and stained a tri-level outdoor deck and cedar fence at a previous home (pic below). And refinished an oak hardwood floor at a graduate school apartment because my landlord did not have that kind of thing in his budget.
Trouble is, blink and the world changes. We recently found that out the hard way, after buying a new unfinished entertainment console from Bald Furniture in Webster. "Piece of cake," I thought, as I custom-mixed our own stain color, as I always have done.
But OMG, it was a horrible experience!! There has been such an incredible push in the past couple of years to lower the volatile organic compound (VOC) content of oil-based stains that many of the previously-wonderful products are now absolute garbage (VOCs can contribute to air pollution, but they are also what give oil-based stains their "teeth" or penetrating power as well as durability). The stain we bought for the entertainment console, having insufficient reactives in its formulation, could not be made to penetrate the wood effectively. To add insult to injury, the insufficiently-penetrated stain then lifted off when we applied clear top-coats, a cheapie effect I had never witnessed previously in my 20-odd years of intermittent experience. Absolute garbage, in my opinion.
About 10 years ago, I researched outdoor deck and fence stains extensively when I lived in central Texas, and I settled upon the brand name TWP (Total Wood Preservative, apparently now renamed "Total Wood Protectant", perhaps reflective of degraded performance??).
However, today when I review TWPs existing products, I see that their formulations also appear to have been changed to "low VOC", which means that I must begin this research all over again, because I will not trust that stuff. (You can permanently mess up a fence or a deck if you use the wrong stain... it's not like you can simply scrape or sand it off).
Anyway, are there any worthy products still left on the market? As I implored above, if you know of a good oil-based penetrating wood stain (not a coating, not a 2-part epoxy), please comment or drop me a line via centerpointe.blog@gmail.com. Thanks!!
As a consummate DIYer, I'm asking someone to recommend a good fence STAIN.
Once upon a time, I was the DIY Master of this stuff, inside and out. I stained and sealed about 50% of the existing wood furniture in our house. I re-stained all the kitchen cabinets prior to selling my last house. I own my own pressure washer (a good one) and stained a tri-level outdoor deck and cedar fence at a previous home (pic below). And refinished an oak hardwood floor at a graduate school apartment because my landlord did not have that kind of thing in his budget.
Trouble is, blink and the world changes. We recently found that out the hard way, after buying a new unfinished entertainment console from Bald Furniture in Webster. "Piece of cake," I thought, as I custom-mixed our own stain color, as I always have done.
But OMG, it was a horrible experience!! There has been such an incredible push in the past couple of years to lower the volatile organic compound (VOC) content of oil-based stains that many of the previously-wonderful products are now absolute garbage (VOCs can contribute to air pollution, but they are also what give oil-based stains their "teeth" or penetrating power as well as durability). The stain we bought for the entertainment console, having insufficient reactives in its formulation, could not be made to penetrate the wood effectively. To add insult to injury, the insufficiently-penetrated stain then lifted off when we applied clear top-coats, a cheapie effect I had never witnessed previously in my 20-odd years of intermittent experience. Absolute garbage, in my opinion.
About 10 years ago, I researched outdoor deck and fence stains extensively when I lived in central Texas, and I settled upon the brand name TWP (Total Wood Preservative, apparently now renamed "Total Wood Protectant", perhaps reflective of degraded performance??).
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| Here's a snippet of the old digs, with the deck having been done by yours truly using Total Wood PRESERVATIVE "Cedartone" and the rear fence in the contrasting "Dark Oak" (see a little bit of it peeking out from behind the grasscloth screen). |
Anyway, are there any worthy products still left on the market? As I implored above, if you know of a good oil-based penetrating wood stain (not a coating, not a 2-part epoxy), please comment or drop me a line via centerpointe.blog@gmail.com. Thanks!!
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