Deck Paint Colors. Painting VS Staining Decking Wood for Outdoor Landscaping

Wooden deck may a beautiful addition to outdoor garden , porch and patio landscapes. Everyone loves to  spend some time outside; reading their favorite book outside, swinging in a nice hammock chair over their comfy wooden deck board. It feels great to see beautiful wood planks laid out evenly under your feet. You can decorate your exterior to make it a fantastic part of your every day life; you can have family dinner in your patio by placing wicker furniture over deck. It is up to how you make your garden and porches functional and useful.

Deck Furniture for Comfy Outdoor Experience

Decks are  usually constructed for extending outdoor living space there making it more useful in routine life. By placing a few patio chairs you have a nice spot for hosting barbecue parties in front yard of your home. Whether your outdoor garden floors are laid by using Ipe, red cedar, pine, or pressure treated lumbers, they would always exude a nice warm vibe when you place good deck seats, chairs and couple of furniture over them and do some landscaping over them.

Since wood decks have to put up with a lot of weather changes such as heat, run, hail and sometimes non-stop down pour for days, they should be painted in good colors. Many love their decks in their natural wood texture believing that painted deckboard would change outdoor aesthetics to a very great extend. It is better to integrate natural element outdoor to keep up the beauty. If you have chosen to use Deck wood as it is, in natural color then make sure that it is tough, hard and strong enough to resist rot, skid marks, and pests.

There are gazillions of deck paint ideas for those who want to use oil, resin or acrylic paint colors for tinting the natural wood surface, making a match with their exterior color palettes used on windows, doors, and house walls. Painting the decking board is sometimes compulsory for filling in the gaps, cracks, and voids. Some wooden decks may change color such as red cedar turns silver gray from reddish brown with time. The color may look visually appealing after some years passed, it is better for you to consider painting or staining the surface in order to hide its imperfection and flaws. Unless you want to leave it Au Naturel here are some most famous, beautiful and aesthetically appeasing deck colors ideas for painting and staining as well.

Gray Deck Colors

You should look through all the best yet lightest tints of gray from the color palettes. Gray can work well for both indoor and outdoor wooden floors. You might have heard of hardwood gray floors, they may have natural color tint but they are famous for their colors. Though lighter version of gray from the color wheel would work well for all sorts of wooden deck boards in outdoor landscape but you can go for mid-tone to hide footprints, stains, and damage on the surface.

Dark Blue Deck Paints

When it comes to choosing the right paint colors for wooden decks, you should always pick any color from blue color schemes. Ocean inspired cerulean and pastel blue can do magic on wooden surface. This color goes so very well with garden, patio and porch landscaping as well. You might have seen tons of public benches being painted in blue color. Pick the right from blue color wheels to transform your outdoor space.

Green Wooden Deck Paint Ideas

Green color has natural vibes, God has created most of herbs, shrubs, trees and nature in green color. You can use sage green or olive green for painting wooden deck boards.

Orange Color Palettes

These days people are so inspired by beige, cream, peach and orange decking wood colors, because they make a visually appealing landscape outdoor. When there is orange painted deck board outdoor, you can decorate it with beautiful colors such as multi-colored planter pots can add curb appeal to your garden and porch.

Neutral Deck Board Colors

Neutral colors include white, off-white, beige, ivory and natural wood. If you do not want to conceal or suppress natural Decking wood textures on the wooden boards you should go for natural paint colors.

Painting Wood Deck Boards

It is well known fact that wood is prone to damage under extreme sunlight and heat. Water seeps in its structure when it is exposed to rainfalls and hails, thereby damaging its natural beauty and causing it to warp or split or crack. Nothing can damage your deck board more than water does. Once water penetrates into deep layers of your floor it will cause serious damage. When moisture locks in deck board it is likely to be a warm place for growth of bugs, pesticides, and tiny insects. When this happens chances of your deck survival through some good upcoming years become very slim. Besides water, decking board may be at risk of tear and wear when they are left unfinished without application of stains and sealants. Painting does fill in all these voids.

Maintenance for Wood

Unlike stones, concrete and concrete pavers, wooden decking requires maintenance from time to time. One of the most important things to protect them is to paint them or stain them. Now many people are still confused which one is better than the other. People still cannot figure out what to do to seal the wood and many still ask the decade old question ” Should I paint the deck or stain it”? The purpose of both is to make a protective cover on the top of surface so deck retain its beauty, texture and quality for years to come.

Deck Sealant and Coat

Most homeowners believe that unfinished wood boards look their best outdoor because the more natural they are the better they look. The reality if when they are left untreated without a seal coat, they tend to change their colors with time faster than their time. Heavy foot traffic over them stain them and cause  wood splinters, turning the surface to become rougher with time.

When unprotected decking is exposed to sunlight and water for a long time period, it eventually wears out to the point where wood becomes unrecognizable and nobody can tell if its Cedar, pine or red wood. Besides all these negative impacts, you may also have to spend extra money on deck repairs because wood is likely to crack, tear, and spit. In worse cases, it would be loaded with bug infestation. Do you want your deck to be infected with bugs? If no, you should always give it a finish look by painting it well in a nice color. If you do not want to add any color to it, you should at least stain it to protect it to some extent.

Deck Board Paint: Pros and Cons

I know most people still believe stained deck boards look way better than painted decks, but we should discuss the both options for their good and bad, advantages and disadvantages and pros and cons. Let’s get started.

Pros of Painting Wooden Decks outdoor

• Since there are many deck paint colors available on the market, you have so many options. Use neutral colors such as blue, green, beige, ivory, and gray for transforming the wood. Make sure to go for the water based colors that have less acrylic or oil.
• Since oil and resin wooden paints are easy to apply for sealing the surface, you can transform even the century old deck boards yourself and give them a new life by changing color on their surface. Some colors are solely as most effective sealants to do this job for you.
• Old decking wood changes its color; with time red wood changes its color , for example red cedar goes from nice reddish brown to very silvery gray color which is not so pleasant aesthetically and visually. When it happens, all the imperfections of wood come on the surface, in this situation painting the deck can work well.
• It is a known fact that with time any hard wood or soft wood deckboards suffer from unpleasant gaps and cracks with time. When you pick a good quality paint color, it does the job of filling in these gaps thereby refreshing the top surface. In other words, you can hide holes, crack, and warps surfaces easily. Some waterproof colors can be applied on the wooden surfaces which have already been damaged due to weather and natural elements.
• Good quality oil, resin and acrylic paints can really make a big difference when they feature anti-grease properties.
• To be honest with you when decking wood is not protected by any sealant, it would be at a risk of fading and graying due to constant sun light exposure outdoor. Paint either acrylic or oil based would work as a deck sealant coating on the surface, thereby working as a shield against cracks, molds, and sun damage.

Cons of Painting Decking Wood

Here are some very common and well-known cons, advantages and drawbacks of painting wood deck boards of patio, garden or yards.

• It is really important to pick the color carefully. In case you have chosen a wrong color from oil wood emulsion Palettes and have already coated it over the decks. It is going to say there at least forever and for some years from the point painting is done. You cannot change it once it is done. Compared to staining and sealing, painting is something that is not easy to take off or remove.
• Instead of doing your all experiments, do the right things and go for those deck colors that would never fail to add outdoor elegance. There are very limited color available for floor paints; you have got to choose wisely. Color options are considerably low compared to wood stain colors.
• Oil-based  wood floor emulsions are naturally very slippery; your deck board may get wet during snow fall and rain fall. If you have used glossy paints on them, your decks would be hard as rock and slippery as frozen lake in wintry season.
• There are no room for mistakes, you have to apply even coats to cover the entire surface nicely. If you have missed a spot or two, it would become visible when color dries out. Try not to make mistakes as seal the wood with oil colors or else you would end up with botched surface.
• It does not matter whether you use oil, resin or acrylic wood paints; they would simply cover up the entire surface and hide the natural textures as well as beauty of wood. The draw back of using deck colors is that they simply suppress natural effect that could other wise add beauty to the exterior.

Pros and Cons of Deck Stains

Staining the decking wood is very recommended . It is best alternatives to latex based oil paints which may leave the surface very slipper during extreme raining season. Let’s find out what are advantages and disadvantages of using wood stain colors.

Pros of Deck Board Staining

• There are so many color available in the stains to choose from; some are transparent while others are semi-transparent in nature. If you do not want to comprise with the wood decks natural finish that staining is the right option for you. Depending on the stain you have chosen, it can work as a clear sealer and protective coat on the surface
• Wood stains work well on all types of decking material such as red wood, fir, pressure treated pine and cedar. The colors are enormous for outdoor landscaping. You can pick the stain that even matches your exterior color palettes of windows, doors and house color.
• Stained decks are usually very easy to clean and maintenance. You can rub the floor with some detergent and cleaning supplies, the wood surface will come out neat and beautiful. Since surface will be less slippery you would never have difficult walking the decking wood when it is raining or snow falling outside. You can even do barbecue during winter season since your board is matte is finished. It would be safe for children to play out side without fear of getting into accidents.
• You do not have to be perfect at staining decking woods, if you have missed a spot here or there, you can stain it later. In fact, those unfinished paint spots would create a very distressed, rugged and vintage style floor surface which add more beauty to exterior.
• Stains do come in transparent wood colors, when you use them for making protective coats, the natural elements of timber and lumbers never suppress underneath it. In fact, you can highlight the textures through staining nicely for creating the effect you want.
• There are tons of million of colors available in wood stain colors available these days. Water based work well for the most part, they would protect your surface from getting damaged by UV rays.

Cons of Staining Decking Wood

There are some cons, drawbacks and disadvantages of using wood stains on boards outdoor. Because of shortcomings associated with them, most people prefer latex based colors. Let’s discuss some of the essential points as for why they are not good enough.

• When you stain a wooden deck; you cannot expect it to last for ages or years.It’s life span is very short compared to paints, thus it is not considered suitable. Even if you apply more than two coats, chances are they will wear off after a few rainfalls in your area.
• Wood stains are really economical, affordable and versatile in compared to anti-skid latex based deck oil colors. However, they cannot fill in the cracks, hide imperfections and flaws of the floors, railings, and surfaces. They are also used on concrete sometimes but they do not hide damaged surface because stain are usually thinner sealers compared to oils, latex, and resins.
• Even there are more colors available if one intends to stain deck boards on their boards but it is fair to say that colors lend very distressed finish to the wooden floors. If you want to add aesthetics and love perfection, you might not enjoy staining on the floor or rails.

When you paint your wooden floors yourself you could benefit from creative ideas. Here are a few very artistic things you can do on boards.

1. Make flower, leaves, mandala and colorful floor stencils.
2. Paint faux wooden floor rugs they are quite in trends
3. Use different colored stains for making stripes, squares, rectangular and geometrical designs on planks.
4. If you are not well versed in painting, you can simply make some dots.
5. Create real floor effect by using your own ideas.