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As with all timber products it still needs a protective coating of a good quality wood paint to make it watertight and protect it from the weather. Thorndown Wood Paint is specifically engineered for exterior use, with a high performing acrylic resin that creates a durable water-repellent coating, and VOC free exterior grade colour pigments that are made to stay strong and true for many years.
The first job was to clean off the old dirt and algae. You can use a soapy water solution and scrubbing brush to do this but as the build up was so thick, we used a pressure washer. The advantage of this is that it is really quick and easy, literally blasting off the dirt and algae. The downside is that power washers are very powerful and aggressive so can strip off old coatings. In this instance the old coating was flaky and peeling so we wanted to get rid of the old loose parts.
After power washing we left it to dry then checked it over. There was still some old loose coating and stubborn dirt and algae so we used a power sander to strip those elements off. Then a final dust off to remove sand dust and any loose elements, then it was ready to paint.
The first coat always takes a lot more time and paint and with a slatted product, is more time-consuming as you have lots of area to cover and gaps, nooks and crannies that you need to make sure to get the paint into, especially on the roof.Â
Although Thorndown Wood Paint is a of a lovely consistency that is easy to paint with, holding to the brush and flowing well onto the surface so drips are rare, it’s always good practice to check over your area once painted to tidy up any drips.
Drying time is really quick and on a nice fine dry day it can be ready to overcoat within 30-60 minutes. On cooler days leave for 1-2 hours.
Once dry, I painted on a second coat starting with the roof so that by the time I’d finished the second coat on the rest of the log store, the roof was dry enough for me to paint on a final booster third coat. Horizontal surfaces including roofs suffer from a lot more wear and tear and exposure to the sun, rain, freezing ice and snow, so coatings will degrade a lot quicker than on vertical surfaces. Hence a third coat making the surface even more durable and extending the time between maintenance coats.
I then left it to dry for 24 hours allowing the coating to properly fix and cure, making sure there wasn’t any rain forecast within that time, then re-loaded the log store ready for cold winter months.
Below is the link to a tutorial video showing how we carried out the maintenance and painting of the log store. A straight forward and fairly easy job to do, creating a piece that is not just functional but a beautiful piece of the garden design.
