I was just thinking idly while out riding fence on my little claim... What if we could craft some sort of varnish from boiled tree bark or something like that? Make up a few clay pots or buckets of varnish now and then, craft a "brush" out of a stick and some straw or wool (or even silk if you're a nut), spend some time one day sealing your log and timber houses and wooden pallisades, and bada-bing, no need to worry about maintanence on them for the next week or month or whatever. That way the Decay mechanism is still in place to destroy abandoned plots over time, and you're still sinking resources into maintenance, just all at once instead of strung out here and there. A varnish "recipe" might need a whole mess of tree bark (like sixteen or more) just to make 0.1L of varnish, which would cover a few tiles worth of pallisade.
And maybe, just running with the idea, the sprites for painted or varnished woodwork could be a different color, just to show it's still protected, and it might look neat too.
Different species of tree bark might be able to make different colors of varnish? (OK, that's probably going too far out on a limb, but i'm just throwing ideas out there)
Thanks for listening