Refinished Wooden Bench

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Updated on June 12, 2024

Refinished Wooden Bench. Learn how to finish an old and weathered bench to make it look like new again. Using some simple supplies, this project can be done in a few hours.

We have been working hard this summer to fix up our outdoor spaces a little bit. Our front porch definitely needed a little sprucing up! We started off by painting our front door an amazing green color from Modern Masters paint. I am glad I took a chance with a bold, bright color.

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I have been wanting a bench to go on our front porch for some time now. We have had some inexpensive resin chairs out front, but I thought I bench would look so much better. I came across this bench on a Facebook yard sale group for only $20. It needed some love, but it was exactly what I was looking for and the price was right.

We started by removing all the wooden slats from the bench. The whole thing came apart pretty easily. We sanded each wooden board with our Ryobi sander so it was smooth, free of old stain and poly and removed the top layer of weathering.

To stain the bench we used these awesome wipes from Minwax that I received at Snap! Conference. They were perfect for this project. They go on so easily and it made the whole process of staining the bench really fast. They remind me of a baby wipe filled with stain. You just wipe the stain right on while wearing a pair of protective gloves. They are great because they have the stain and finish all in one, and it dries in only one hour.

Since the bench was going to be outside in full sun for much of the day on our porch, we needed additional protection from the elements. We used a Minwax Helmsman Spar Urethane to cover each slat of wood after the stain had dried.