Tips and Tricks on Staining a Pergola!

*This post was sponsored by Wagner. Thank you for supporting the partners that make Reality Daydream possible! This post contains affiliate links*

When we bought our house 7 years ago, there wasn’t much in the way of landscaping… let alone a deck or patio area. It took us a few years to make it a priority, but we finally built our rounded pergola and installed the patio.

Enjoy this short progression of photos that represents dozens of hours of hard labor, sweaty breakdowns, and actual gnashing of teeth.

We spend SO MUCH TIME out on this patio, and we didn’t even notice how much the unfinished wood of the pergola had gotten so worn and dull over the last couple years.

But the idea of staining a pergola (let alone SEALING) was daunting.

SO. many. boards.

I was picturing myself brushing it on, one stoke at a time… resulting in me laying in the middle of the patio in a pool of defeated tears and wood stain. But after doing some researching, we realized that we could SPRAY the product on with a paint gun type thing. I was still hesitant and DREADING it. But our friends at Wagner sent us one of their spray guns to use (the Flexio 590) for this project, and that thing works like a dream.

Of course it doesn’t hurt that the hubs is 6’8” tall either. LOLOL! He did the first coat, and I did the second… and my coat took twice as long because I had to get down and move the ladder every 30 seconds. But it went on so smooth, I wasn’t complaining! This paint gun is so easy to operate… AND easy to clean! And we loved that we didn’t need to drag our giant air compressor out onto the patio for staining a pergola.

We used Thompson’s Water Seal stain/sealer in ‘Woodland Cedar’, and we love the rich cedar color. It makes the wood seem so much more vibrant and alive! And much less like it’s going to crumble.

The absolute WORST part of this project was taping/papering off the house to protect it from overspray. Isn’t the taping and prep work always the worst?

However, it was easier than we thought it would be, because Nick discovered this brilliant little tool that actually dispenses the painters tape and paper together. Basically a life-changing product for all DIYers.

After applying both coats of stain, and removing the paper, we stood back to appreciate the full effect of our newly refinished pergola!

I mean, check out the difference in this convenient before/after collage I made.

Yeah yeah, I know that wasn’t a fair before and after pic because one was on a cloudy day, and one was on a sunny day. But you get the point right? Plus, I can’t control the weather sooo….

Our curb appeal just went from zero to sixty in no time! And it makes for MUCH better pictures when I’m photographing our little fam enjoying a fall day.

On a totally different topic, I’d like to show you what our girls spent our 3-day weekend doing.

Wait for it…

SO MANY HEARTS.

I have a feeling when it rains, we’re going to have lots of tears in this house. I’ve been dropping hints about it in hopes of preparing them for the trauma in advance.

UPDATE… exactly 5 minutes after I typed that, it started raining. The girls looked out the window and said, ‘It’s raining! I guess we’ll have to draw all our hearts again later. Do you think it’s raining in Mexico?’ LOLOL …I can’t make this stuff up.

What did YOU do this past Labor Day weekend? Do you get out and go boating? (we got a little canoeing in!) Or did you do some house or yard projects?

~Bethany