During the last few months we have been at home a lot more and I decided I needed to do a little garden makeover. My first job was painting my shed and Ronseal kindly GIFTED me a 5l tub of Fence Life Plus in the colour Slate.
I love grey so this was perfect for us and not too dark. I really wanted to use this particular product as it holds a 5 year guarantee. I didn’t particularly want to have to paint it again in a years time and I wanted a long lasting product and this ticked those boxes. The front of my shed had been previously painted in a different paint and it didn’t hold up well over the winter so I had high hopes for this product.
As you can see in the before photo the previous paint was patchy and just looked disappointing. The paint I used last year wasn’t a Ronseal product. You can see at a quick glance it didn’t give an even coverage or the same finished look as Ronseal state their product does.
This end of my garden has been pretty neglected so I couldn’t wait to get to work and make it look nicer. The whole process was filmed over 3 parts and part one can be found here.
The main reasons I chose to work with Ronseal over any other company is because of the 5 main benefits of the product.
- The colour lasts for up to five years
- The colour can be applied to damp wood
- Showerproof in one hour
- It can be used on sheds and fences
- Protects the product against rain, snow, frost and UV damage
With us living in the UK It means painting outside can be a pain as the weather is rarely sunny and with the paint being showerproof in an hour it is a game changer.
The paint was super easy to apply despite my first impressions of it being quite thin and watery. I’m used to painting inside and this paint is a completely different consistency to matt paint which makes sense as they have different uses. It needs to be thinner due to the items we are painting.
Due to my shed being quite old and rough it took 3 even coats to cover the two sides. It used about 3/4 of the tub so be careful if your shed is larger. Ronseal have a calculator on their website which helps to tell you how much you will need. I could of got away with 2 coats but I didn’t want it to be patchy and I wanted to make the shed was protected correctly. I haven’t painted the inside of the shed as it’s only me who sees inside but a few areas of peeking through so it will need to be touched up when it’s next sunny. I plan to turn the shed into a little office eventually but that’s another project for another time. I can 100% say though that I will be looking into a Ronseal colour for the inside when I do paint it.
As you can see the side of the shed was looking very unloved in its mixture of natural colour and painted brown. This is the only before photo I have of the side so it’s mainly flower based. This flower bed was also made from scratch and the wooden edge will also be painted slate grey too. I found the flower bed edges – which were either sleepers or just solid wood – took the paint really well and it didn’t require 3 coats. I thought it brought the whole area in together and made it look very cosy.
I would say I spent around 10 hours or so working with this paint and I loved it. It is so easy to paint with, it doesn’t feel like a chore to paint with and as a bonus it’s easy to remove off clothing and skin as I’m a very messy DIYer.
I had planned to paint the gate and fence but unfortunately they got broken in the winds earlier this year so they will be replaced at some point by the landlord and then I can get them to match!
One of my pet hates when painting is usually cleaning my brushes at the end but this was really easy to wash out and it didn’t completely trash my brushes. So bonus points for that!
There are parts that need to be touched up as I’m a messy painter and apparently seem to have missed parts on the 3rd coat but overall I’m really happy with the finished look.
Final Review
I am aware I was gifted to me so you might think I’m just saying it’s good but I am really happy with the overall look and product. I have got a second tub on order from a local stockist so I can make sure I have enough to match the fences and any other bits I fancy painting.
I now need to crack on with the weeding and planting lots of flowers!
Thank You to Ronseal for providing us with a brilliant product and if you want to find your lock stockist then look no further than this link here.
