New day, new project, today it’s staining a picnic table. We got it as a hand-me-down from our family, and it has sat out in the yard for several years. This caused one of the braces to wither away and rot, which is why you need to know how to stain a deck; after it was fixed, we knew that we needed to get it done. If you are wondering how to stain a picnic table, this post is for you. Since we have wood stain leftover from restaining our deck, we moved on to the next project, our weathered old picnic table. If you are ready to tackle this project here, you go.
What you will need to stain your picnic table.
Here is everything you need to stain your picnic table
- Stain – we used an oil-based stain from Cloverdale; it was the same one we used on our deck.
- Paint trays and stir sticks
- Pad applicator
- Assortment of Brushes
- Drop cloths
- Paint thinner
- Palm sander with 80 -100 grit paper
- Pressure washer
- Painters Tape
- Gloves
You can use our free home renovation budget template to assess how much your project will cost you and keep track of things.
Step 1: Prepping the Picnic Table to Stain
Inspect your picnic table for rotten boards
Before you stain your picnic table, you will need to inspect it and see if there are any boards that need to be fixed. You’ll also want to take note of any other fixing that needs to take place, like screws sticking out. Loose boards and splinters sticking out are a good sign to remove the board and replace it. Also, make sure to check the braces underneath the table. Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t rotting.
Clean the Wood of Debris
Once you have all your material and replaced the boards, you will need to clean the wood. Grab your pressure washer (I use this Karcher model). You will want to give it a good spray and leave it for a few days to dry out.
Ok so we didn’t have the time so we skipped this step (in case you are wondering if you can stain a picnic table without cleaning it).
Sand the Picnic Table
Next, you will want to sand the picnic table and get rid of any imperfections that you find.
There were a bunch of splinters, dust, and other things on it, so giving it a good sanding was worthwhile. Plus, it didn’t take too long. I would say this table took less than 30 minutes to do. We used this palm sander and 80 grit paper; it did the job nicely.
You can see how a board of our picnic table looked before and after sanding. The bottom is sanded, and you can see a big difference in the wood.
Step 2: Staining the Picnic Table
Staining Underneath the Picnic Table
We have a great tip for staining a picnic table; flip it. This was a genius idea (meaning someone else told me), and it is so obvious, but I would have missed it.
By flipping it upside down, we were able to stain the underside of it way easier than it would have been had we been on our backs on the ground trying to cover everything. When you are doing this, make sure that you are getting all the hard to reach and areas you can’t see. Depending on what kind of picnic table you have, it could have a lot of nooks to stain—so double check before you are done with the underside of the picnic table.
Here is what the underside of the picnic table looked like when it was fully stained.
As you can see, we skipped the drop cloths. Big mistake! There were pieces of grass everywhere, and we really should have used it, not to mention we got a stain on the grass too.
Flip the Picnic Table Over and Stain the Top
Next, you will want to stain the top of the picnic table and apply the stain evenly over the whole surface. Make sure to cover the whole area. This wood was really dry and soaked up nearly a full gallon of stain on its own. When you are buying stain, ask the clerk if you can return any of the unopened ones. We used the Cloverdale Teak Sharkskin paint, and it’s great! The water beads up, and it covers really well.
Step 3: Let the Stain Dry
Once you are done, you simply need to let the stain dry for a few hours or a day, depending on the instructions you have for your stain. This one said you could reapply in 3-4 hours, but we will leave it for now.
Final Thoughts on How to Stain a Picnic Table
After we were done staining the picnic table, we were kicking ourselves. We let this job feel like it was enormous and left it for YEARS! Somehow we made it to be bigger in our minds than it actually was. If you have a picnic table that needs to be restained or refinished, I would strongly recommend that you go and do it. You will make so much more use out of a table when you have it in peak condition.
Next up, it’s restaining our bench.
Bonus Staining a Picnic Table Before and After Photos
