Winter-Ready Playground

At two-year's old, the kids' playground was starting to show its age. It's holding up very well and remains a sturdy, amusing addition to our backyard. But the roof and a few other surfaces had lost their finish in a way that made us worry that it was bad for the wood.

After a little research, we opted to use a spray can of Olympic Waterguard seal, rather than the paint-on polyurethane or deck stain. We weren't trying to do anything too dramatic, just protect it from the weather and give it back a little of its cedar color.

D grabbed the ladder and started lightly sanding the damaged surfaces on a rare weekend day this fall that looked like it would stay dry for a few hours.

It took really minimal prep work, compared to a more dramatic refinish. The results were pretty much immediate. This is beam on the other side of the set. The left picture is the "before," and the right is "after." The color was a bit redder than we expected, but it does seem to be blending in ok to our...let's call it "aged cedar."

Here is the roof, after the treatment. You can see it's a little redder than the untreated places, like the vertical wall below it, but it no longer has that scaley, weathered look that made me think it would become susceptible to rot. Besides the annoyance of having to wait for a dry, not-too-windy day and of having to bring out the ladder, this project took minimal work. For once, a job that took exactly as much effort as we though (maybe even less!). And we have enough sealer in the can that we can probably do it next year with no new supplies needed. Our playground is winter-ready!