Painting your Cupolas, Pergolas, Trellises and Arbors
Posted on March 25, 2021
The South Shore and surrounding towns are full of interesting architectural outdoor structures that deserve a flawless paint job.
These wooden outdoor structures help our Clients define their landscape, provide privacy, and help guide visitors to various parts of your yard. Because they are usually made of wood, these backyard structures need protection from our harsh New England climate.
Painting Wooden Pergolas:
Designed to provide shade to an outdoor area, wooden pergolas need to be painted or stained to protect them from the beating sun. Because the pergola is often in direct sunlight, the pergola’s top might need a maintenance coat every 3-5 years to stay protected and beautiful.
Painting Wooden Trellises and Lattice:
Designed to help plants “climb” your home, trellises make a nice statement over entranceways and garage doors. It would help if you kept the plants growing on the trellis only lest the plants climb to other parts of your home, and our painters have to remove the growth before we paint.
Lattice adds a nice texture to your home and landscape and offers plants a vertical place to grow. Lattice is also used on below deck skirts to hide the unattractive “space” between the bottom of the deck and the ground. Lattice fencing is also popular on the South Shore and in the Boston area. Like with trellises, be sure the plants stay on the lattice, and don’t start climbing your home (unless you want them to). If we have to paint a home with climbing vines, we must remove the vines before preparing the home’s surface which adds labor cost to the project. Lattice usually requires painting with good exterior paint or stain every 5-7 years and is usually done when we paint your whole house or deck.
Painting Wooden Arbors:
Arbors enhance walkways and help make an entrance to your yard clear to visitors. Wooden arbors need to be painted or stained using good exterior paint every 3-5 years to stay protected and beautiful.
Painting Wooden Cupolas:
A cupola is a square, octagon, or dome-like structure that sits on top of a home or building. Seen along the coast, they are used to provide a private lookout spot or to emit light. They were originally designed to add ventilation to the area under the roof, and on barns, they were installed to help increase the airflow to help dry the bales of hay in the barn! Today, cupolas in the Boston area can be decorative, functional, or both and often are topped off with a pretty weathervane. Painting a cupola usually occurs every seven years when we are performing exterior painting to the rest of the home.
Painting Wooden Gates, Fences, and Railings:
With their railings, the Fences and Gates provide privacy and help you create spaces for entertaining within your yard or pool area. Wooden fences and gates need to be painted using good exterior paint every 5-7 years. If you are putting in a gate or fence, consider using PVC or composite material to make it mostly maintenance-free. We say “mostly maintenance free” because you still may occasionally need to powerwash mold and mildew growth from the PVC, but this is a lot less expensive than painting them.
Painting Wooden Lantern Posts and Mailbox Posts:
Keeping your lantern and mailbox posts looking beautiful with a coat of paint instills a sense of pride in your home.
Mailbox posts, in particular, are an easy place to add curb appeal without much effort or cost. Painting your lantern mailbox post is a great DIY project you could complete in a few hours yourself or have our painters add to your project while we’re already there. And what a difference a painted mailbox post makes to the entrance of your property!
Painting and Staining Wooden Outdoor Shower Enclosures:
If you’re lucky enough to have an outdoor shower, keep it looking great with a coat of paint or stain every five years or so. If you have a PVC or Composite shower enclosure, you can choose to paint it a new color, especially if you’re changing your home’s colors. Most people paint outdoor shower enclosures white or stain them a similar color as the deck, but we’ve also painted them the same color as the home or trim color with great success.
Painting Wooden Outbuildings (Pool houses, Sheds):
Pool houses and sheds usually need painting or staining every 5-7 years with good exterior paint. Adding personality to an outbuilding by painting it a bolder color is a low-impact way to show a little of your personality!
Painting Wooden Planters and Window Boxes:
Usually, planters and window boxes are painted simultaneously when we paint your home – every 7 years or so. If your planters or window boxes look a little dingy, they can be painted with exterior paint. To keep the bottoms of your planters and window boxes from rotting, be sure they have drainage holes in them.
Where to buy architectural structures in the Boston-area?
We love Walpole Woodworkers and Perfection Fence in Marshfield for their lovely “New England” craftmanship. If you are thinking of adding any of these structures to your home, consider buying them in PVC Composite material as it is much less costly to maintain than wood since wood needs to be painted often to stay protected in the New England climate. Yes, using composite means less painting for us, but it’s much less expensive for you to maintain.
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