Is your PVC or wooden garden table, benches or chairs looking the worse for the wear? Not to worry, here are a few simple, and highly cost effective solutions that the average man or woman can easily take on.


Let’s take the wooden furniture first.

Firstly, If you’ve just bought new wooden garden furniture, I recommend you apply just one good coat of a product like Seasonite to allow the wood settle down while preventing water / moisture damage. In my humble opinion, there's no point in applying those oils etc on new wood because it cannot penetrate properly due to the pores being still closed together with what is called mill glaze. This is something that happens to wood when it passes through the planer blades during manufacture. Mill glaze must have time to go away or be removed before proper treatment can take place.


If your wood is over six months old, and the pores will have opened somewhat, you could move on to the next step and apply two coats of a deep penetrating anti-UV oil like Textrol to keep them right from there on. Every other year or so, just apply one top-up coat and that’s it. It’s a dead easy to apply, and it does not peel off. You can even tint that product with various nice wood shades.


All too often, tables, chairs and benches etc are either treated with the wrong finish resulting in peeling, etc. or not treated at all leaving them to the mercy of the elements.


Here are a few simple steps that will breathe a new lease of life back into them.

If coated with an old varnish, remove it with a stripper like PrepDeck following maker's instructions. Next, wet the surface completely and apply a coat of a great new product called Net-Trol. Leave the Net-Trol for about 20 minutes and then agitate with a stiff brush. (Read instructions)  Rinse off with a hose or a power washer (at low to medium pressure) and when dry, your wood will be back to how it looked on day one more or less. 

If there is any rust present near screws, brackets etc, spot prime with a dab of Owatrol oil and leave it to dry.

Next, to keep them looking good, apply two coats of  Textrol, one right after the other for a lovely natural matte finish. (wipe off any excess and do not allow to pond.) 

For a totally different look, you could also use a “stain” of any colour oil based paint, mixed 30% Owatrol oil.

If you already have oiled or stained your wooden garden furniture and it looks bad, you can remove it easily with a Prepdeck. If you need to use that, you may darken some woods in the process, and you should neutralise the wood afterwards with Net-Trol to bring the colour back prior to re-treating it again with Textrol or the like.


Plastic garden furniture.


You can clean them up really well with the Net-Trol used in the same way. When completely dry, apply a light coat of Owatrol oil with a clean cloth and buff to a shine. If you want to change the colour, use E.S.P. followed by any oil based paint that takes your fancy. The same applies to plastic downpipes, gutters etc. Now you’ve got no excuse, just get to it, and then sit back and enjoy.

All above products should be available in most of the better paint or DIY outlets around the city. If you cannot obtain them you could also contact some company like Igoe International Ltd Tel (01) 830 2226, 087 8123997, Fax (01) 830 2921. E-Mail   info@igoe.ie