I made kiln dried wood shutters for the house. I wanted solid cedar, but what I ended up buying I think is simply white oak died red.
3 years ago I put up shutters to just a large 4 section picture window in the dining room.
Unsure what to use I gave them 4 coats of Formby,s tung oil finnish.
Last year I added shutters to 2 more windows and an upstairs windowbox. I think I used clear poly on them.
This year the ones with 4 coats are still fairly good, but I sanded them down to bare wood and applied one coat of Spar varnish to try to make them all look alike.
The ones that have only been up for one year have faded far more and I am giving them one coat of the same.
It looks to me like this is going to be a yearly process to keep them looking nice.
Would I be better off with one coat to make it easier to sand down and refinnish, or would it be better to give them several coats, perhaps extending their look of bare wood for, hopefully a number of years, but also making them harder to strip?