It is essential that you treat and protect garden furniture or the wood will deteriorate and then your furniture will become unusable. This can be a costly mistake as you will have to buy new, rather than just spending a small amount of time to keep them maintained. Most people will treat their garden furniture in spring or summer but you also need to ensure you have a good coating to protect throughout winter. There are a lot of wood care products available to treat your garden furniture but how do you know what is the right choice? Well below you will see the best products available to protect your outdoor wood furniture.
With garden furniture wood treatments, they can be either water-based or oil-based. In our opinion oil based is the best choice as it will offer higher protection due to the way it soaks into the timber and this will create a water resistant finish. Most oil based treatments will also offer UV protection and come in a wide choice of colours.
If you are looking to seal exterior wood but keep the grain visible along with the natural character Osmo offers a very handy and easy to use teak oil spray. It is quick and easy to apply and the finish will enhance the wood whilst offering good protection. This is best suited to hardwoods and as it is oil based, It prevents moisture from getting into the wood. This helps to stop swelling and shrinkage and the oil coating will not crack, peel or flake. This is a very easy way to protect garden furniture without too much work.
Osmo also offer a good all round garden furniture oil. This is a clear Satin finish, ideal for outdoor furniture as it is a micro-porous finish that allows the wood to breathe. Because it is a breathable finish, it reduces swelling and shrinkage of wood. The biggest bonus of osmo garden furniture oil is, you can simply re-coat without sanding or using primer so this makes maintenance very easy. Simply add a coat once per year for superb protection.
A cost effective solution is Liberon garden furniture oil, as this is also oil based but very reasonably priced. Because this is a clear oil, it protects the wood but leaves the natural beauty of the timber still visible. It is easy to apply and also comes with UV protection, so helps to stop fading by the sun. This wood oil is designed to create a non-tacky finish so ideal for garden seating and wood benches.
If you want a tinted colour on your garden furniture then there are some superb options. There are a couple of different options depending, if you still want to see the wood grain or if you want this masked with an opaque finish.
Osmo Natural Oil Wood Stain is a wood finish that comes in two different sheens, Satin or Matt. This is a superb tinted wood finish that can be used on garden furniture but still allows you to see the grain of the wood. As it has been made using natural oils, including sunflower, soya, and thistle oils, it is one of the most natural garden furniture oils on the market. There is a large selection of tinted colours for you to choose from so you can make some stunning effects on your exterior wood.
Osmo Country shades is different as it covers up the natural grain of the wood with rich and vibrant colour and this provides the strongest UV protection out of all the wood oils. It comes in 120 bespoke colours all inspired by the elements of nature. There are colours inspired by Water, Fire, Earth and Air. This is like garden furniture paint but is far better as it is an oil. It creates a micro-porous finish that allows the wood to breathe, so reduces swelling and shrinkage of wood. It also creates an extremely good water-repellent finish that does not crack, peel, flake or blister. It is easy to maintain as unlike paint, you do not have to sand back to bare wood when re-applying. There are some really quite unique colours and you can create your very own style on your garden furniture.
How to clean garden furniture
We have shown many different products on how to protect your wood but what are the best products to clean your garden furniture? below are a few good products specifically for this purpose and this can help to renovate your wood, before applying your protective wood oil.
Osmo Gard Clean is a really good product for cleaning garden furniture as it is also a disinfectant so helps to remove green growth and mould. It is a concentrated solution so goes a long way and once you have cleaned the wood, you can coat using your preferred choice of osmo wood oil.
Liberon Garden Furniture Cleaner is also a very good product for cleaning garden furniture before treatment. It can rejuvenate old, tired and dirty wood and help to put colour back into wood that has dulled and faded over time. The special cleaning agents help in the removal of black spotting and helps to prevent the re-growth of fungi.
We have many more options available but from customer feedback and from using these products ourselves, we have found them to be the best available. If you have any other suggestions or need any advice, please leave a comment below and we will always help where we can.