Cottage Staining and Maintenance Around Georgian Bay

Most of the cottages we look after around Georgian Bay have the same problem, and it is not the one people expect. The wood is usually fine. It is the finish on it that has quietly given up, and because nobody is standing in front of the place in February, it tends to go another two winters before anyone notices.

Here is roughly how we think about it, and what we would tell you standing in your driveway.

Cedar does not behave like siding

If your cottage is clad in cedar shakes or rough sawn board, it moves. It swells when it is wet, shrinks when the sun comes back, and does that a few hundred times a year on the elevations facing the bay. A paint film sits on top of that and gets asked to stretch with it, which it will do for a while and then stop doing all at once. That is why you see paint lifting off cedar in sheets rather than fading evenly.

Solid stain soaks into the wood instead of sitting on top of it, so there is no film to lift. It still holds its colour, and when it does eventually wear it goes thin rather than peeling, which is a much easier thing to fix. On weathered cedar it is almost always the right call. We use Benjamin Moore Woodluxe solid stain for that reason.

Painted siding, trim, doors and window frames are a different question and usually stay painted. Plenty of cottages need both, which is normal and not a sign anybody did anything wrong.

How often it actually needs doing

There is no single number, and anyone who gives you one without looking at the building is guessing. What we see around here:

• South and west elevations go first. They take the sun and the wind off the water, and they will often be ready two or three years before the rest of the building is.
• Solid stain on cedar tends to run five to eight years before it wants a maintenance coat, less on the exposed walls.
• Painted trim and doors usually outlast the stain, so it is common to do a full refinish once and then just keep the stain topped up.
• Decks are on their own schedule entirely. Horizontal surfaces take standing water and full sun, so two to four years is more realistic there.

The useful habit is not counting years. It is walking the building once a season and looking at the worst wall. If the colour has gone chalky when you rub it, or water soaks in rather than beading, that wall is asking.

Seasonal properties have one real advantage

A cottage that sits empty for part of the year is easier to work on than a house somebody is living in, and that works in your favour on price and on scheduling. There is nothing to move, nothing to work around, and no reason to break the job into phases so a family can keep using their kitchen.

Shoulder season is usually the easiest time to get booked. Exteriors around here run roughly May through October depending on the year, and the weeks at either end are the ones that are still open when midsummer is full. If your place is empty in May, you are in a better position than most people calling us.

We can hold keys, work with a property manager, and send photos as it goes so you are not driving up to check on it.

What we would look at on a walkthrough

When we come out to quote a cottage, this is genuinely what we are doing:

1. Reading the worst wall first. It tells us what the whole building is heading toward.
2. Checking whether it needs stripping or just cleaning. Some cottages need a wash and a maintenance coat. Some need sanding back on two elevations and nothing on the others. These are very different prices and you should be told which one you have.
3. Looking for the boards that are past saving. Rot at the bottom of a shake wall or around a window is worth fixing before anything goes over it, and we will show you rather than quietly coating it.
4. Working out the sequence. Deck, siding, and trim do not all want doing in the same week, and there is usually a cheaper order to do them in.

The honest version

If your cottage was last done more than six or seven years ago, it is probably time to have someone look at it. If it was done in the last three, it almost certainly is not, and we will tell you that too. We would rather come out, tell you it has another couple of seasons in it, and be the people you call when it does.

We have painted and stained cottages from Collingwood through Thornbury out to Creemore, and plenty of places in between. If you want a straight answer about yours, get in touch and we will come and look at it.