“The house has got a winter coat”

You would be hard pushed to find a better location. Sun all day long and an unbeatable view out over the ocean. There is really only one drawback with this scene – the black paint of the facade has suffered from the effects of the constant sunlight and sea winds. However, Malin and Linus’s dream house in Vallda Sandö has now been given a new “winter coat” called Black Pine Tar.

“The new paint feels incredibly substantial and somehow reassuring. It feels like we have enveloped the house in a sheltering and cosy winter coat. Now we feel ready for the storms and cold sea winds of winter – whereas these previously were a severe test of the paint on our facade,” says Malin Ask.

Fed up of repainting
The dream house, a space totalling 226 square metres, was completed ten years ago. During the decade since they moved in, Malin and Linus have had to repaint the house four times, both because the wood has dried out and cracked and because the paint had lost its lustre. As the summer of 2017 approached, and it was time to get out the paint brushes yet again, they decided to get to the root of their ‘facade problem’.

“We simply got fed up of the paint we were using and having to repaint so often. What if we could find a paint that really impregnates the facade and protects against sea winds? It also needed to be a substance that could be used over the top of our old paint. We started Googling around and were pleasantly surprised when we came across Black Pine Tar.

Comprehensive protection
The misconception that pine tar was some kind of thick and sticky substance quickly became a distant memory. Malin and Linus hired two painters from Darius Bygg & Alltjänst, who painted the house twice during the month of May.

“When they started painting, our immediate neighbours commented that the pine smell was a bit pungent, while those who live a little further away simply thought it smelled nice. The strong pine scent does wear off after three to four weeks and develops into a pleasant fragrance that makes me think of boathouses in Bohuslän,” says Malin.