In a word? Yes, you can paint, stain, or re-seal our wood units. Our wood products come with a basic water-based sealant already applied. We recommend you reseal the unit every 6 months or so when the weather changes to keep the wood looking beautiful.

But if you would like to seal, stain, or paint the unit upon purchasing it, should you sand off the sealant that is already there?

Simply put, no you do not have to. You can paint, seal, or stain over the basic sealant and it will adhere to your unit. However, we have found that sanding the unit before re-sealing or staining the board will bring out the grain and have a better overall look.

When sanding the unit, we used a medium grit sanding block and only sanded by hand until the sheen of the sealant was gone. A power sander was not necessary. To seal the unit, we used Thompson’s WaterSeal Signature Series Clear Exterior Wood Stain in our tests to great effect. For the paint tests, we used Fusion by Krylon.