August 20, 2025
I looked at this image and saw myself gathering there with friends and family–or the grandkids roasting marshmallows–or me curled up in the corner with a good book… all great memories in the making.
There’s something to be said about surrounding ourselves with natural materials and the feelings of calm, happiness and the connection to nature they evoke, unobstrusively reducing our stress and increasing our sense of well-being. Oh, for more time outdoors!
Wood is the ultimate natural building material, because it’s comes from a renewable resource–and it will last forever if you take good care of it. The smart people at Sansin (who provided the image above) took their inspiration for formulating wood finishes from the stave churches of Northern Europe, where they grew up.
The stave churches are wooden structures that have persisted for more than a 1,000 years. With a coat of heart oil and resin sourced from trees, the finish could then mimic the protection that bark provides, allowing the wood to breathe–and expel it’s embedded moisture–while also protecting the surface from the elements.
The gathering place above could be finished in a couple of ways:
With a tinted finish like SDF (Sansin’s one coat finish for siding, decks, fences and furniture), available in 100+ colors.
Or with two coats of Sansin’s Wood Sealer, a clear finish which protects the wood from the elements while letting it gray naturally. Either finish will give you years of reliable protection, as these finishes fade gracefully, without the cracking, peeling or blistering you see in so many wood finishes over time.
For anyone interested in the topic of biomimicry (designing solutions based on processes observed in nature), may I suggest BIOMIMICRY: INNOVATION INSPIRED BY NATURE by Janine Benyus, a thoughtful examination of how to create without waste, just like Mother Nature!
