Staining and refinishing wood patio furniture can be a big project. First and foremost, you will want to make sure that you have taken the proper precautions by having gloves, a face mask, and goggles on while working. Wood stains and sealers cannot only damage your eyes with direct contact, but the fumes can be very strong as well.

You will need to start by stripping the furniture of any past sealer that was used. This can be a very annoying process, but you want to get down to the natural wood for best results. You will need to get mineral spirits and a good rag or two. This will be the most time consuming and most important part of your project. If you skip this step, the new stain won’t sink in and it will look sloppy and probably worse than how it started.

After you remove the sealer, you will want to completely sand down the furniture, trying to get healthy wood exposed, have everything be even, and to try and even out the color. You can either use an electric sander, or just go at it the old fashioned way by hand. Once you have finished sanding (and blowing away as much dust as you can) you can now begin to stain your furniture.

You might want to take a small piece of the same type of wood and try a few different stains to see which color you like best. It is also very important that you stain the wood before you put the new seal on. If you seal off the wood first, the stain won’t sink in, and it looks like a bad paint job. You want to use even strokes in the same direction, and make sure that you are applying the stain as evenly as possible.
There will be some differences, and the wood throughout the furniture will probably have different initial colors and absorption levels, but that is the beauty of the wood. Don’t try and fix what is natural. After the stain has set, you can then choose the appropriate wood sealer to use on the furniture (there are many that specify “outdoor wood furniture”). Continue to use even strokes, and make sure that you are getting into every corner so you don’t end up with an unprotected part of your furniture.

This stuff smells terrible, fair warning. You will want to complete this project outside, because the smell will reside indoors for a while. Good luck!