Such a fun weekend so far.......

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jeffie7

Wrong Whole!
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I spent 2 afternoons this last week power washing my deck getting it ready for this weekend. Me and Linh spent about 6 hours straight staining the deck. Talk about a PITA! doing all the railings up top, on the sides, under them... yada yada yada, the flooring of the deck only took about 1 hour, so 5 hours for those damn railings.

Here's some before/afters.
deck1.jpg

deck2.jpg


I'm surprised at how well it turned out, The deck was in such bad shape, splinters everywhere! I removed lots of big chunks of wood while power washing it. I started off by using a deck cleaner, letting that sit then power washing it, if I do it again, I plan on skipping the deck cleaner, the power washer took care of most everything. The cleaner was just an extra step.

As far as applying the stain, we used nothing more then a 1" and 3" brush.

Only thing I dislike about the job is after seeing the pictures, I noticed we went too light on the ends of the decks so its stained too light, we'll have to touch that up later.

A question for you deck owners, in a year or so, can I just do a light power washing or will that remove the stain? What's the best way to keep the deck looking good?

P.S next week we do the fence........
 
before I even read what you wrote, I was just going to say "now its time to do the fence." It's either the time of day with the lighting or the plain truth, but the before pics, your neighbor 2 decks down seem to have the best looking deck. You finished yours and now theirs looks a little old.

good job though. Looks much better. Its almost likes my parents house with their original hardwood floor. at first it was old and looked way past worn out. My dad spent about a munch sanding, staining then finally did like... a lacquer finisher. It came out great too. If i were you I would get some kind of sealer or something to preserve that look on your wood longer
 
I could be wrong and there's a debate going on, but I believe you seal untreated wood that you don't want to stain, or you stain the wood and that acts like a sealer.

reading DIYs they never talked about sealing after staining, even the can says nothing about for best long lasting results buy a can of our sealer.

So I "think" I'm ok, however, I've yet to hear from a pro.
 
Yeah, thats something you go talk to a carpenter about I guess.
 
Most if not all exterior stains are also a sealer. Pour some water on the deck, if it beads up its sealed.
 
huh? font looks normal

You missed the fact he said he is staining the fence the next weekend. :)






Looks good homie. You can always re-stain it every year. And yes, stain acts as sealer. Most of the time, it'll just darken doing that, but the stain will fade a little bit, and certain areas will become sun bleached.

I'm an exterior carpenter, and we stain every piece of wood we put on the wall. EVERY piece. All cuts. It's tedious, monotonous, but it works.
 
Wow that actually looks really nice. My parents painted their old deck and sealed it but now the new one i'm going to stain so it looks like a decent project.
 
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