How to paint your garden fence like a pro this summer
For smaller projects like this palette feature, a brush or roller will suit better than a sprayer. Ronseal Garden Paint. Blackbird, Slate, Lime Zest, Sundial and Purple Berry. From 9.20 per litre, multiple suppliers.
There are few things more deeply, smugly, satisfying than painting up the garden fencing. It’s a relatively brainless job, but one that makes a big impression. All those big leery surfaces looking in and around the house and garden do.
Like all painting jobs, it’s three-quarters prep and potentially just an hour of actual application if you’re using a spray pack.
Clean down rough timber fencing with a stiff brush to remove cobwebs and general grot from between the boards, and take the time to weed out around the base to give yourself a nice, clean canvas. Look out for any structural issues with the fence and be ready to tamp down and level any listing posts. A seriously green fence should be cleaned down with algae remover like HG Algae & Mould Remover (€14.99 for one litre) following the supplier’s instructions. Rinse off and leave to completely dry out.
The wind and lack of attention will turn a spray job into a small horticultural disaster, so cover up anything you don’t want to be bathed in drifting product, including vulnerable planting, paving, masonry, and decorative items.
Be aware of any of your immediate neighbour’s climbing plants or trees sitting on a boundary fence, and perhaps have a chat about trimming them back or shielding them during the job.
Have a large cardboard blind ready to put on the top of the fence, holding planting behind it as you work to avoid damaging over-spray. You can attach cardboard to an old sweeping brush or flat mop system to create a blind with more reach that moves with you.
Your own shrubs nestling close to the fence can be shrouded in plastic wrap and gently weighted down to incline them away from the action. If there are posts you don’t want to spray (say in concrete), use painter’s tape and heavy-grade paper or cardboard to completely wrap them up before starting. Yes, it’s a bore, but for a clean job, it’s time well spent.
Stir your stain or paint thoroughly to ensure the tint (that colours the fence) is not set on the bottom. Take a good two to three minutes and if you return to the job after tea, stir it up again. In thicker paints, ensure the product is designed not to crack, peel or blister for at least five years (and in my experience of living in a wood-clad house surrounded by post and rail — expect three!).
If you’re using water-based, exterior wood paint rather than stain, it will have to be thinned to the consistency of single cream to pass through any sprayer. There’s no guarantee it won’t wreck a cheap spray gun. Be prepared to experiment.
Open fencing like post-and-rail is better painted with a brush as the over-spray into the voids between rails makes the work very wasteful. Simply apply one broke, desperate teenager, armed with a brush to the area.
When using oil and water-based stain marked as "sprayable", guns are fast, accurate and when the spray setting is set correctly, economical too. Look for a product that has a nozzle you can dial up and down to match the size of the fiddliest bits of your wood fencing.
Ronseal’s Precision Finish sprayer is my go-to (€30 without stain), as it’s easy to manage and has some intelligent detailing including a set of balancing pedals to the base of the tank to steady it while pumping up the pressure.
Choose a completely windless day on a warm but not blazing hot afternoon when you know everything is tinder dry and your neighbours are not sunning themselves over the fence.
Stain may dribble down to their side between feather-boarding. Check the weather for the following day too, as the paint (rather than a thinner stain) will need a little time to cure.
You’ll have around 5l to muscle around, enough to cover six fence panels. If you have kilometres of fencing to deal with; Wagner-corded electric sprayers start at €75 for a 460w sprayer with a 1.4l tank that will save you that Popeye-The-Sailor-Man upper-arm work-out. It’s good for deck work too (screwfix.ie). Ryobi offers a battery sprayer as part of its multi-tool platform. From €130 at handyhardware.ie.
Wear surgical-style gloves, and a paper mask to protect your lungs. I would try the sprayer out on a piece of cardboard to ensure everything is tickety-boo before hitting the fence.
Ronseal advises: “Hold the nozzle about 15cm away from the fence and start spraying. Twist your arm 45 degrees when changing direction.
"You’ll need to hold the nozzle a bit further away than you did for the accuracy setting (doing larger areas); about 20cm to 25cm. Make sure to overlap where you've sprayed so you don’t get any gaps."
Use a smaller spray area to do the detail of your uprights, and then move into the wider area with a speed setting that will cover more width — it’s a bit like cutting in and then painting indoors. Using a dedicated sprayer matched to the right product from Ronseal or Cuprinol, you’ll get through a fence panel in the area of four minutes or at least 2m of decking boards at the same time. Only you can decide if a second coat is needed, but with paint colours, honour those drying times.
Most of the trouble with sprayers is caused by using a product not intended for spraying, or lack of pressure. Thick, gelatinous paint will struggle to get through the hose of any sprayer in an even coat. Match the stain or paint to the sprayer, and change direction while spraying to get into the nooks and crannies of a highly textured fence.
You need to keep the tank pumped to the point that it’s relatively difficult to push the handle down and lock it in place, otherwise you’ll get the drooping water-pistol fail that can deliver a right old mess as it quickly clogs up at the nozzle.
These sprayer packs are relatively cheap, despite being reusable, so tighten up those connections at the tank and the spray arm before every use, and recheck as you work.
If you clean up and discover you have missed areas of the fence, just pour a little stain into a jar and, using a soft brush or a household sponge, just wipe over those areas.
Don’t be tempted into crazy viral hacks like the micro-fibre dusting glove dipped in stain to do more than tiny areas of patio fencing. It’s extremely messy and delivers paint up to the elbows in the worst cases. Be sure to wear a rubber glove under the dusting mitt if you’re determined to try this lunacy out, and be careful to avoid very rough fencing prickling with serious splinters.
The glove, of course, will have to go straight into the black bin when you finish. If you don’t want to spray the fence or prefer to use thicker paint on modest areas of fencing — use brushes and shaggy rollers — so much easier than sloshing paint on with a sponge! As with all paint products, please dispose of your paint as hazardous waste, and don’t pour leftovers into the drain where it will enter the watercourse.
