I wanna make my fence plain again!

Anya

Anyone know how to uncolour a fence. My husband decided he wanted green fence panels, but now we want them plain. I need to find a way of getting the green off rather than replace the panels. Any ideas anyone?

flea72

you could try sanding, but i would have thought that the green has been absorbed into the wood, so its gonna be alot of hard work

prob easier to buy new, and treat with a clear preservative, although they will still darken in colour, to a dull brown/grey over time

fairenoughclough

Do they not make preservative in wood colours ?

Anya

They do make them in wood colours but because we have already painted them in a dark green they aren't going to match the new fences that we are having put in around the rest of the garden. We share the green fence with our next door neighbours who have painted their side blue. So the problem is that if we get new panels, they will have to repaint their side. I feel bad asking them to do that for the sake of us changing our minds so I was trying to find a way around replacing them if possible.

chappy

We used a high-powered jet wash on ours,

Takes a bit of time but gets enough off to restain them or creosote them

Anya

Was thinking about that - thanks! What about some sort of paint stripper - would that work?

lipidicman

With paint stripper the paint peels off, with fence stain I think it would be too soaked in. Nasty stuff too, a horrible job!

Anya

Looking like getting new panels then?! Unless anyone has a better idea. Would have to offer to paint the neighbours side as well or just go green all round if worst comes to worst!!

lipidicman

Your fences dont have to match do they? In most gardens you only do one side and the neighbours do the other, so very few gardens have matching fences

m00nie

may seem mad but

would it not be cheaper to paint the new fence green, then paint it all the colour you want now as so it matches?

thought fence colour would be cheaper than new panels and saves the neighbour having to do anything

Anya

Thought about doing that too. The idea was though to leave them as natural a colour as possible. We were going for the natural look. The wood look stains that we have tried before didn't look very natural so we were going to find some sort of clear treatment if there is one available.
The fences do need to match in our garden, I'm not bothered about what colour the neighbours paint their side. I just don't want one green fence and two plain?!