• Ontario home & cottage staining and painting
• Expert wood siding restoration for Haliburton & Muskoka harsh weather environments
• Exterior wood refinishing
• Sandblasting services
• Deck refinishing
• Log home specialists
• Log home chinking

Prepared Surfaces is a fully insured outfit that specializes in the preparation of surfaces, for the staining and painting of cottages, homes and industrial buildings.

After starting out by painting barns around the Windsor area, owner Bill Withey moved with wife Kristin to Haliburton County, where he soon realized that the extremes in local weather created problems for home owners and cottagers that a quick coat of paint or stain could not hide.

When cottagers or home owners decide to build, most often wood is the material of choice. Dampness, mould, and insect invasion are all enemies of wood, and Bill found that most contractors merely treated wood with a coat of oil-based paint or stain, and walked away feeling the job was complete. Owners however soon realized that the paint was peeling and fading, insects were boring into the logs of their homes, or the stain was losing its colour. And so Prepared Surfaces was born.

One of the most common problems is associated with log homes. "Log homes are a living breathing entity," says Bill. "With our huge changes in temperature from summer to winter, any wood contracts and expands, but it also needs to breathe and let moisture move in and out. For a log to dry out completely, it takes about ten years, so when your treat your log home with oil-based stain, it's basically sealing in moister." For that reason Prepared Surfaces uses top quality water soluble stains on log homes, exclusively. Water based stains let the logs breath. Moisture, expansion and contraction are also the culprits in creating crumbling, or gaps in the chinking between logs. Prepared Surfaces can remove the old chinking and replace it for you.

For 13 years log home owners and owners of other wood structures have looked to Prepared Surfaces, as the leader in the field, to prepare their homes properly before the finished coat is applied. Prepared Surfaces will work with owners and contractors to prepare the surface, but they also specialize in applying finishing coats to projects which they've prepared themselves. "We guarantee our own finished coats, if we've done the prep," says Bill. "With the exception of decks, which have to be constantly maintained regardless of the preparation or finished surface."

Many cottage and home owners sooner or later opt for re-staining and/or painting, and that's the time to call Prepared Surfaces. Bill and his well-trained crew use a variety of methods to properly prepare wooden surfaces, from hand-sanding and scraping, to sand blasting. "We use glass almost exclusively on houses," Bill reveals. It's better than sand due to its moisture resistance. Sand also consists of a lot of silica, whereas glass is silica free, and therefore more environmentally friendly. We do use sand sometimes on metal surfaces like truck frames."

Prepared Surfaces uses only top quality paints and stains for greater durability. Paints and stains should have high pigmentation to combat the elements. There's less colour fade, flaking and peeling. With many inferior quality paints and stains, pigmentation is too low.

"What we create is a situation where the owners can look after their properties with a low maintenance cost. We like to do it right the first time. The proper preparation of the surface, along with a top quality finish, gaurantees that. Why would you put a poor quality product over a surface that has been prepared properly? Or conversely why would you choose to put a top quality product over a poorly prepared surface?

With Prepared Surfaces you not only get excellent preparation, but also efficient clean-up. All excess glass and paint scrapings are blown away or removed, and windows are cleaner and left looking like new.

Prepared Surfaces is justifiably proud of their good customer relations, and will work with clients to help them prepare, or finish the the job themselves with recommended stains and paints. At prepared Surfaces they always tell you what you need to hear, and in the long run you'll be better off, because you'll be saving on maintenance costs down the road. You can reach Bill or Kristin Withey and Prepared Surfaces at (705) 286-4714, or email preparedsurfaces@msn.com.