Refinishing Muskoka/Adirondack Chairs

This year we spent time and money on a few projects making our backyard a great place for entertaining. W had a new deck and surrounding patio stones installed. I built an outdoor live edge bar table, and installed a White River Rock Stone Garden. The next piece was installing seating on the patio stones to make it a useable space. I had a several Muskoka Chairs that I had finished quite a few years ago with a Whitewash Pickling Stain and an outdoor Spar Urethane finish. These looked great , but over time the finish began peeling from exposure to the elements.

I decided to revitalize these chairs by completely sanding and refinishing with outdoor Wood Oils. I chose a two-tone finish; White for the arms and slats for the seats and backs, and grey for the other components.

The advantage of the wood oil finish is that in a few years I will not have to sand down to refinish, but simply add another coat of wood oil to revitalize the finish.

Materials

• Osmo - One Coat Only HS Plus (White Spruce) Outdoor Wood Oil
• Osmo - Decking-Oil (Grey)
• Painters Tape
• Sandpaper

Tools

• Orbital Sander
• Palm Sander

I spend several weekends sanding the 2 single Muskoka Chairs with the orbital sander and 60 grit sandpaper. I occasionally also used a tiny palm sander for the hard to reach places.

Make sure you use proper PPE; I wore an N95 mask and a full face shield.

For the White wood oil I used Osmo One Coat Only HS Plus Outdoor Wood Oil. This can be applied with a single coat. I applied a single thin coat per the directions. I liked the look of the thin coat; it was quite similar to the Whitewash pickling stain I had originally finished the chairs with years ago, but not the look I had envisioned.

I waited a full week for the Osmo One Coat Only HS Plus to fully cure and applied a second coat. Now we're talking! This is the finish I wanted!

I removed the painters tape and waited a full week for the 2nd coat of white to cure, then applied painters tape on the white areas near where I would apply the grey decking oil. I applied a coat of grey decking oil per the instructions. This decking oil has a 12 hour drying time.

As with the white outdoor wood oil, I applied a 2nd coat and achieved the finish I was looking for. After I applied the second coat, I immediately removed the painters tape and cleaned up the few areas that bled through the edge of the painters tape with a damp shop cloth.

I was quite pleased with the results bringing new life to my weathered Muskoka Chairs, and achieving a look that matched the other upgrades I had been doing to the backyard. I was able to achieve this with several weekends of work and saved a ton of money versus buying new chairs.

I plan on refinishing the 2 footstools this year in the same White/Grey and will post and update. The 2 seat "Tete-a-Tete" (seen in one of the earlier pictures) is a bigger project and will most likely be in spring of 2022 as I have a couple of other backyard projects planned this year. In the meantime, I have borrowed 2 Grey Poly-Resin from my front porch which match quite nicely.

Update: I've sanded and refinished the 2 footstools in the same White and Grey wood oil as the chairs.