We used Sadolin Superdec satin opaque wood protection - a self priming and undercoating satin finish for exterior wood. This will give us up to 8 years protection from the elements and give complete outdoor furniture care.
Method:
Step 1: Our garden bench must be clean and dry - so we took it indoors and let it dry out.
Step 2: Sanding - don't cringe when we mention this but to get the best finish on your garden furniture it is an essential step - all in all it took us 15 minutes to sand this garden bench.
Step 3: A good dust down to remove any sanding debris. This can be done with a dry clean paint brush
Step 4: Now for the paint - we used a 4" fabric roller and tray and a 2" synthetic brush to apply our Sadolin Superdec. We chose a purple from the colour catalogue.
We painted a complete section at a time - first the back, then the sides, then the seat - this made the project more manageable. The dry time for the first coat 2-4 hours but it needs a full day to dry completely between coats.
Step 5: After the first full coat of paint - the bench is really starting to look good already however one final light sand and another full dust down will guarantee us a perfect finish - and this sand took us only 10 minutes.
It does look really well at this stage but for the final flourish and quality finish we gave our bench a full second coat.