Make your outdoor spaces look great with a fresh coat of paint or stain.
Our decks and fences provide us with great social gatherings, peaceful solitude and time for reflection. Having these areas look great is an important part of seasonal enjoyment.
A Perfect Oasis Awaits
We know what it takes to make these areas look great and understand that they require regular maintenance. We stain and paint decks, fences, and all your outdoor structures.
Your Outdoor Area Deserves a Professional Finish
Decks are made up of rails, steps, deck floors, lattice skirt boards, posts, pergolas, trellises, benches and have many different shapes and sizes. They are a highly visible and essential area of your home. As the outdoor living space of your home, it is important to have them maintained and looking good for your seasonal enjoyment.
The successful staining or painting of decks relies on the selection of the right products for the surface, proper preparation and regular maintenance. Our deck staining and painting services start with:
Selecting the right product for your deck:
Stains come in solid and semi- transparent forms. Solid stain resembles paint and is opaque while semi-transparent stain allows the wood grain to show through. The choice between the two is a matter of personal preference and desired outcomes.
Stain comparison: Solid stain vs Semi-transparent
| Solid Stains | Semi-transparent Stain |
| Opaque (shows texture not grain) | Shows wood grain |
| Can be applied over semi-transparent | Cannot be applied over solid stain |
| Alkyd, acrylic or emulsion base | Alkyd or emulsion base |
| Alkyds for new wood or recoat | Alkyd for new wood or recoat |
| Self-Priming | Self-Priming |
| Life span 2-5 years before recoating | Life span 1-2 year before recoating |
| Easy to apply like paint | Requires more expertise in applying |
There are paints available to coat deck surfaces including polyurethanes, floor emulsions, acrylics, and alkyds but these are the least preferred products. The issue is that when they fail, they peel and require extensive and time-consuming scraping to remove. For the most part, these products are only used if the existing coating is paint.
Preparing the Surfaces for the Stain or Paint
- Washing (power washing and hand washing)
- Scraping
- Priming (all stains are self-priming)
- Sanding
- Caulking
Application of the Product:
Solid stains can be applied by brushing, rolling or spraying. Semi-transparent stains needs to be applied by brush although there are accepted methods of rolling combined with a brush finish that are commonly used.
Maintenance:
Decks are high maintenance items and in order to keep them looking good, you will need to recoat more often than other exterior surfaces. Like the rest of your home, decks are exposed to weather. However unlike other exterior surfaces of the home, rain and snow sit on them, they are walked on, shovelled on, have heavy items sit and dragged across them, have plants grown on them and are exposed to a whole lot of other activity. In order to keep decks looking good, they require maintenance.
Our suggested maintenance program:
Solid stains can be applied by brushing, rolling or spraying. Semi-transparent stains needs to be applied by brush although there are accepted methods of rolling combined with a brush finish that are commonly used.
- Every 1-2 years, clean and recoat deck floors, steps, and the tops of your rails
- Every 3-5 years, clean and recoat rails, posts, skirts, and other areas of the deck
The selection of colours is made easy with Elite Trade Painting. We provide colour charts and samples as well as guide you in the use of our suppliers’ online tools.
Exterior painting is a seasonal project in most regions as rain and cold weather prevent the safe application of exterior paint products. However, the enhancement of paint products during the last number of years has allowed painting at colder temperatures. Many paints now have a quick-drying formulation that has a 1 to 2 hour no wash off feature, which allows painting in more uncertain weather conditions.
It is easy for clients to prepare for the exterior painting process. Clients must tightly close windows, move outside furniture and other items away from the building and park vehicles away from the areas being painted prior to the start of power washing and painting.
Solid and semi-transparent waterborne alkyds are the best products for decks and fences. Many prefer semi-transparent oils, although these are less environmentally friendly. All stains are self-priming. In the case of painted decks, we use a porch and floor enamel. This product is self-priming, but a waterborne alkyd primer can also be used.
Our exterior surface preparation for decks and fences consists of
a) cleaning, which can be a full-power wash or just cleaning as needed,
b) scraping, wire brushing, and sanding of the old coating to ensure a stable base,
c) other structural repairs and processes as required.
A solid stain and porch and floor enamel will need to be recoated every 3 to 6 years, with walked-on surfaces requiring more frequent recoating, especially on heavily trodden areas. Solid stains require significantly less preparation for recoating as there is usually little to no peeling. Semi-transparent stains require recoating every 2 to 4 years, especially on the walked-on surfaces. The advantage of a semi-transparent stain is that there is no peeling, which makes recoating easier and faster.
A typical acrylic or oil-based varnish is not suitable for exterior application. However, a Spar varnish is specifically made for exterior use and is the only varnish we use for exterior application. The use of Spar varnish is not common on decks. However, there are some speciality coatings by manufacturers, such as Cabot Stains, that provide a similar look to varnish.