We bought my daughter a Rainbow Swing Set about three years ago. Between the sun, rain, and wind it has faded over time. We finally decided it was time to re-stain the playground so that it would not get any worse. It’s a pretty pricey swing set and I want to get many more years of use out of it! We bought some Behr Semi-transparent Waterproofing Wood Stain from Home Depot to get the job done.
If you plan on re-staining your swing set, be sure you have the time to dedicate to it. It took a few hours to paint the stain onto the whole swing set, so it was definitely time consuming, but well worth it! The playground looked just like new when we were done. Check out the before and after pics below.
Before:
After:
Are you looking to re-stain an old wooden swing set? I recommend doing it before it gets any worse. Re-staining our girls swing set has surely added some life to it and I hope to get many more years of use out of it.
Can I come over and play on that amazing looking swing set? The stain made a HUGE difference. When I was looking at the before pics, I was thinking, this looks great already but really the stain finishes it off. Lucky kids – keep reminding them of that!!!
Super cool. I need this in my backyard for my 4 gkids!!! Jealous!!
Aloha! What a beautiful site you have! The swing set looks amazing!!
Thank You!
I was thinking the same as a pp had said – it looked good before. I’m impressed
Wow it looks great!! Love the swingset. I’d love for my girls to have one like that!
I would love one of these for my son
That looks like a ton of fun to play in!
We just inherited an old wooden swing set like yours from my in-laws. It was in pretty bad shape we had to replace some rotted boards and rusted/stripped nails. Its all together now and I’m in the process of sanding and staining it. Except I went with the Behr Premium Solid stain. I wanted it to last another 20 years and not have to touch it again. (The Behr premium solid promises 10 years on decks and 25 years on fences so I figure a swing set is somewhere in between). I should have taken a before and after like you! but my swing set was much much worse before lol(the wood was completely grey and peeling paint)
I can’t believe what a change that made! It’s gorgeous already but now it looks brand new. Great idea!
Looks good! I need to get my daughter one of those swing sets…
I love the look of your set! The finish really made it look brand new again! I also like that you don’t have a closed in slide. My husband’s family still has their set for his younger siblings and wasps build a nest in the closed in slide EVERY year!
aww..thanks! The kids love it. I actually thought the closed in slide looked even better, now that I heard about the wasps, I’m glad ours is open!
Oh my word! We have almost the same exact swingset, and we need to stain it THIS WEEKEND! So glad I saw your article!
That looks like a lot of fun and the stain really brings out the beauty in the wood.
Wow! That really did make it look brand new! I’d love to have a set like that for my son!
wow this is beautiful. it looks very expensive and brand new! great job
Looks like new! I’m getting ready to tackle staining ours and wanted to ask a few questions. Did you clean it first? I found an article that says to clean with 50/50 bleach water and of course home depot says I should buy a pre-stain cleaner. Also, did you just use large paint brushes or the staining mitt. Any advise would be great. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Joanna! We just did a brief cleaning with a water hose and dusted off the spider webs and bird droppings. If it isn’t really dirty, I honestly don’t think a pre-stain cleaner or anything like that is necessary. We used paint brushes and a mini paint roller similar to this one, http://www.lowes.com/ProductDisplay?partNumber=161011-11591-93648&langId=-1&storeId=10151&productId=3192735&catalogId=10051&cmRelshp=req&rel=nofollow&cId=PDIO1. I highly suggest the mini roller, it works great! We did one coat, but it is recommended that you do two, we just never got around to a second coat, and thought it looked pretty good with just the one coat! Let me know if you have any other questions! I’d love to know how it turns out for you:-)
What color did you use?can this be done with just me or do I need hubby?
Hi Angela,
I’m pretty sure you’d be able to do it by yourself, it’ll take longer, of course, but it’s definitely possible! As for the color, unfortunately, I can’t remember what it was called.
Wow, that’s an awesome swing set! The stain looks like it worked excellent. I know Behr is a fairly new product line, how has it held up over time?
It’s actually held up pretty well. We may have to re-stain in a couple years.
That’s pretty good. Every few years for a re-stain isn’t bad at all!
WOW it looks awesome! Looks all brand new all over again, great stain color too, love it.
Do you remember how many gallons of the stain you used?
Hi Karsyn,
I believe we used just the 1 gallon.
Hi,
Thanks so much for this post! This was easy as pie (except picking the right color haha). I am 9 months pregnant and did this in just a couple of afternoons to our playset and it looks like new! No sanding & no hassle. Just roll it on and voila! The semi-transparent stain and rollers are the way to go.
Thanks again for the details to make this an easy project.
Elisabeth
I’m so glad it worked for you! Very true, there are quite a few colors to choose from, can be hard to pick one. It’s now been a while since we’ve re-stained, our playset is in need of a new coat!
The swing set looks amazing! What color stain did you use?
I used Tint Base No. 3077