Log homes showcase wood in its natural form. It’s what they’re famous for. And yet, when it comes to style, there is a surprising variety across the log home genre. Stains deserve quite a bit of credit for this, as they complement the wood and awaken the design, giving homeowners the opportunity to express their personal style.
But what happens when tastes change? The good news is you can change the color of your log home stain, but you must do it strategically; log homes are not like conventional stick-built houses. Here’s what you need to know.
Keeping Up Appearances
Homeowners’ desire to change the stain color is often driven by a ragged appearance. Faded wood, gray splotches due to weathering, bubbles under stains and rotted logs make a home look shabby. Keeping up appearances is really about performance.
Log cabins are often synonymous with rugged environments. Such dramatic landscapes often come with severe UV levels; dramatic daily and seasonal temperature swings; and deluges of water, whether in the form of snow, ice or rain. All of these test a home’s durability to the extreme.
Under these circumstances, colored stains do more than look pretty, they are a log’s first line of defense. Their tint is an effective UV inhibitor, and they protect the wood from the elements. The same way bare skin is more susceptible to sunburn than covered skin, a tinted stain is a cover-up for your home’s logs and timbers. But not all pigmented stains are the same.
Know Your Stain
Oil-based stains are attractive at first, but the oil eventually evaporates leaving a thin layer of powdery tint. These stains can also be environmentally toxic. Paint will hide the wood’s unique features, and any protection is short-lived. Under paint, wood can’t breathe and traps moisture, leading to rot. Paint is also inflexible. When wood inevitably expands, contracts and shifts, micro-fissures will develop, giving water a place to seep in.
Perma-Chink’s waterborne stains, like Lifeline Ultra-7, Lifeline Ultra-2 and Lifeline Exterior, adhere tightly to the wood and are both flexible and breathable. Naturally occurring moisture inside the wood can escape and the stain won’t crack. This hard worker is also semi-transparent, allowing the wood’s gorgeous swirls and personality to come through. Lifeline Advance, Perma-Chink’s clear top coat in a satin or glossy, deepens the stain’s beauty with a gorgeous luster. The Perma-Chink system makes maintenance a breeze so you can safeguard your home’s beauty and stay in love with your stain.
But what if you wake up and decide that you want your lovely, gray-stained home to be a toasty almond color? There are several options.
A Stain of a Different Color
If you want a stain that is darker than your current color, you can put a layer right on top. However, this tactic does include some risk. Perma-Chink’s stains are semi-transparent, and some of the original color will show through. The result can be a stunning and unique combination, but chances are you won’t be able to match this new shade the next time you stain. You can, however, continue with the newer, darker color. This only works from light to dark. To go from dark to light is nearly impossible. For that, your home must go back to bare wood.
Stripping away stain and finishes to return to bare wood can be achieved in one of three ways — sanding, blasting or with chemicals. Media blasting and sanding are the preferred methods for a Perma-Chink home.
Sanding involves using paper with an abrasive substance glued onto one side then vigorously rubbing the abrasion against the wood to remove the stain. Media blasting also uses abrasive materials, but these are propelled by compressed air. Media blasting uses many types of materials: walnut shells, glass or plastic beads, corn cobs, just to name a few.
Once the surface is fully stripped, rinse your home with Log Wash to clean off any residue. Having clean, bare wood is a fresh start. An application of odorless borate-glycol wood preservative adds further protection against fungi, mold and insects. Next is the fun part . . . picking the new stain color. Perma-Chink’s Lifeline series comes in gorgeous colors — grays, golden browns, reddish tones, and rich cocoa colors — so you can achieve the exact aesthetic that appeals to you. Order free color samples by visiting Perma-Chink's Exterior Wood Finishes store.
Good looks and low maintenance — that’s the true log home dream.
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