Teak Wood Home Siding & Pergola Refinishing Project in Los Angeles

Um, it has weathered unsightly. We’ve got a little bit of black mold and mildew, oxidation, water spots, bird stuff, you name it. Mother Nature has thrown everything at it and it doesn’t look too good. So, uh, we’re super happy to be back here and we want to go ahead and show you how we are going to reverse these unwanted changes on this custom teak woodwork.

All right, guys. So, take a look at this custom pergola. Everything here on this property is custom. All made out of solid teak. Solid teak boards. Look at that. No veneer, no funny games, nothing like that. It’s all custom. Beautifully built. This is probably about 15 years old.

And unfortunately, uh, the owner uh wasn’t able to maintain it in a timely manner this time, which was very, very rare. They’ve been really, really on it but it’s been over 2 years and you can see on these horizontal surfaces that it’s weathered pretty badly. You’ve got a little bit of black mold, things like that. But on the vertical surfaces like this area, it still has color. So, I mean that’s a testament to how vertical and horizontals weather differently.

And you’ve got all this stuff here, which is custom doors, frames. So cool. Custom doors, all solid teak. No veneer here, nothing like that. Just beautiful custom woodwork.

All right, guys. So, we’re here at the guest house and I just wanted to point out on this custom wood, uh, teakwood siding that it has a significant amount of black mold and mildew on it. Now, I just want to point out that Teak Master didn’t create the mold and mildew. The coating company didn’t create the mold and mildew. And even that disgusting evildoer, the blow-and-go finishing pro who you should never hire, didn’t create this. Mother Nature did.

And Mother Nature’s wrath is crazy. You can see the mold spores. Take a look at that. Oh, it’s growing even down here on the bottom. It looks like chocolate chip cookie, if you will.

And that’s a combination of microclimate. You’ve got huge ficus trees. You’ve got a lot of foliage. You’ve got the marathon grass. You’ve got all the plants and everything. You’ve got a gigantic pool here. You’ve got sprinklers, drip irrigation. You also have weather patterns for any particular year and the microclimate. So with all of that, expecting an oil or any sort of finish to sort of um thwart Mother Nature’s efforts is, it’s just not going to happen. It can stop it for maybe a little while, but it’s not going to stop it altogether.

Uh, only maintenance is going to do that. So ongoing maintenance, planned maintenance at the appropriate time is what’s really going to keep this wood looking good and staying protected all the time. And of course, it can always be reversed, but maintenance is the key to keeping this looking its best all the time.

And then just to recap, a disclaimer again, it’s unfortunate, but these wood surfaces do get black mold and mildew, and it’s just par for the course, I guess you could say, but it can always be reversed.

All right, guys. So, the first step is removing the surface contaminants, black mold, mildew, and algae. And the best way to do it is with power washing. Power washing is not a refinishing tool. Remember, it’s a cleaning tool. So, we want to make sure we efficiently clean these exterior wood surfaces.

And just a heads up, don’t believe what you read on the internet. Power washing is an effective tool on exterior wood surfaces and even teak furniture. You just have to know how to use it.

All right, guys. Here we are. The most important step, and that is sanding. Sanding is so important because it removes oxidation. It restores a smooth texture back to the wood. It removes contaminants embedded in the grain and previous coating. So, it’s, it’s the step that you just can’t skip.

And it’s the step that evil disgusting clown, the blow-and-go finishing pro, wants to skip. He’s telling people like, “Hey, look, I can give you a low price to come and blow and go, skip the sanding.” And as you guys know by now, that’s not the right way to do it.

A lot of this work is hand work. It’s slow and tedious, but you know, we’ve got to get into all the nooks and crannies. Notice that we’re covering and protecting everything. So, there’s a lot of prep that goes into this. Again, a lot of hand work. We even employ our dustless sanding system so we can contain dust as best as we possibly can. And that is just a great, great attribute that all of our clients want.

After everything’s been sanded, we need to hose off any residual dust in the grain. Get everything super wet. Then we spray on the wood brightener. Wood brightener kills black mold, mildew, and algae, and also brightens and promotes color. It’s an imperative step. You want to keep the wood wet while you’re doing this. Let it sit for a while and then neutralize it by hosing it off. So, thoroughly hosing off the brightener to neutralize.

And there you got it. Clean, sanded, and brightened raw teakwood ready for the finish.

And I know people are going to sell you guys on some miracle products to last 5 or 10 or 15 years or some nuclear bomb blast or something, but that is not the right way. That’s not correct. Don’t use anything water-based or water-oil hybrids or any varnishes or urethanes or anything like that. Imagine getting in between all these slats and having everything peeled by using a water-based or a cheap, uh, varnish or something. Um, it’s not going to work.

So, the penetrating oil-based finishes are the best. We brush them on. We allow it to penetrate for a certain amount of time and then we wipe it off. So, you get a nice natural matte hand-rubbed oiled look. And this is great because one, it looks natural and two, it’s maintainable moving forward.

So the characteristic is to gradually fade and dissipate over time. Very similar in theory to applying sunblock on your skin, right? Sunblock will dissipate over time and you reapply it when it’s necessary so it keeps protecting your skin. The same thing goes with the wood. You want to reapply at the appropriate time so that it keeps on looking good and it stays protected.

And these oil-based penetrating finishes are the original finishes and they’re still the best. They allow for a natural look like what you see here. And maintainability. That is absolutely key with a larger project like this and something that’s super intricate with all these slats, windows, doors, glass, brick, plants, everything that we have to work around. We want to make sure that we have ease of maintenance.

All right, guys. So, we have everything finished up here. Sorry, there’s uh lots of sun out here in uh LA. And um we cleaned, sanded, brightened, and applied the penetrating oil finish. And just look at this beautiful work of art. Absolutely stunning teak pergola.

We’ve got this little section here, the divider. It’s all done. We got into everything in between all of the slats. Just beautiful, clean work here. Everything has been touched. Everything. End grain. Just absolutely stunning. Custom teak pergola.

Beautiful teak windows, window frames. Really, really nice stuff here. Back to its original beautiful look.

And as we come over here, got the side of the garage. Another work of art here. Just absolutely beautiful. Stunning. Everything back up to speed. Just natural teakwood. No sealer, nothing on the glass. We recaulked all of the glass, so there’s no leaks. There’s sprinklers and drip irrigation here. And sometimes it leaks into the garage. Got all that taken care of.

And then just the beautiful custom teakwood finishings here. The fascia, this divider, these beautiful custom. Look at that reflection. So beautiful. Beautiful custom teak doors and windows. Divider. Shower area. Just absolutely stunning work of art here.

All right. Now, this area might be hard to capture here because we’ve got lots of shadows, but as you can see, all that weathering is gone. Just beautiful, natural. Here we go. Natural teakwood.

As always, thank you so much for watching. Take a look at our website, teakmaster.com. It’s just as interesting as this video here. Got before and afters, videos, content. It’s amazing. Hit that like button. It matters. Follow us because that matters, too. If you guys watch, we’ll come out with more content just like this. Again, this is Tim Gilliam with Teak Master and I’m signing off.