Brushing up

Paint to perfection this summer

As the weather continues to improve, you will be able to get out and about and do odd jobs, such as touching up paint works in the garden.

Here are some tips on how to give your shed, fence and deck a new look:

Colours for garden wood have come a long way since you could get brown or green and little else.

Now you can choose from a myriad of different hues, so your outside space can be just as colourful as the inside.

Before giving your garden wood a makeover, clean it thoroughly – unless it’s new, it will probably need a good scrub with a cleaner designed for the purpose.

Allow the wood to dry out before starting to paint, and consider applying wood preserver first.

One of the pitfalls of painting a fence is navigating nearby plants, which can make the job tricky.

Cover them with plastic sheeting as much as you can, or tie them back out of the way.

If the plants are growing against the fence and quite large, you may be better to wait until they die back at the end of the year to paint the fence properly.

In fact, you may find that fences you can hardly see now, and so don’t need to paint, will be much more visible in winter.

If your fence has horizontal planks, paint in a horizontal direction, and if it has vertical planks use vertical strokes.

Painting a fence or shed with a paintbrush can be very time-consuming and is much quicker with a paint sprayer.

Not all garden wood paint can be sprayed, but if you want to make life easy, choose one that can.

Another good way to clean garden wood is to blast it with a pressure washer.

The top-of-the-range models are particularly powerful and designed to tackle larger, heavy-duty outdoor cleaning jobs quickly and easily.

If your deck’s painted, start by doing a small tester patch because a pressure washer may remove the paint as well as the dirt.

Painting a deck will transform it, but ensure it’s clean and dry first.

Unless they’re non-drip, oil-based paints are prone to runs and drips that can ruin the finish.

The best way to ensure a good finish is to keep checking over the paint you’ve just applied, so you can brush out any imperfections before they dry too much.

If you’re painting outside in direct sunlight or when it’s hot, you’ll have to work quickly because the paint will start to dry faster and won’t be workable for as long.

Picture: PA. There are outdoor opportunities aplenty as the weather gets better.