Staining & Sealing Our Deck: Before and After
This week’s Before and After is brought to you from our deck. Several weeks ago, Kim power washed the deck to remove dirt and grime and return the deck to its original yellow shade. On Memorial Day weekend, we put two coats of stain/sealer on the deck. The whole project took us more than 24 (wo)man-hours, not including Kim’s prep work getting the deck ready (which was probably another 10-12 hours in itself).
Overall, we’re happy with how the deck turned out (and it’s beading water when it rains, which is great). We have a couple of complaints with the stain/sealer we used, and some lessons learned on paint sprayers and pump sprayers, both the subjects of later posts. For now, we’re basking in the enjoyment of having the deck returned to a usable state. We eat nearly every meal outside between the late Spring and early Fall. It’s a wonderful space, and it’s WAY easier to clean up after the twins. Now, if we could just get it to stop raining for a few more days so we could actually enjoy it.
OK, without further ado, here’s the pictures:
Before (that’s our boys playing 
):
After:
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June 1st, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Love the color you stained it! It looks great. We are BUILDING a deck this summer, but hopefully out of salvaged redwood, so we will need to do this, too!
June 1st, 2008 at 9:20 pm
That looks amazing! Do you want to come to Wisconsin to do our porch?!?
June 1st, 2008 at 9:21 pm
It wasn’t an enormously back-breaking project, but I posted my before/after shots of our microwave purchase…whoop-dee-doo, right?
June 1st, 2008 at 9:45 pm
I’m jealous,that is a beautiful deck.
We had the parts to build a 4 x 7 metre deck from our old house and had to sell it as the costs of our renovations escalated.
June 1st, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Jennifer-thanks for the compliment on the color - although it was COMPLETELY unintentional. We really wanted the deck to look more like a wet version of the yellow pine, and we ended up with the shade we got. I’m going to talk about that in my review of behr’s stain next week (I’m still trying to put together a fair post). I like the idea of building a deck from salvage wood - very efficient use of resources - I’ll definitely be watching.
Cotterpin-hahaha! This thing took us FOREVER! That said, if you pay for the airfare to Wisconsin and the all the materials, and you let kim and I stay in your guest room, you might have a deal!!
SSA -
We just put in a new fridge today (B+A next week?) I’ll swing over and check out the new microwave..
Bill - sorry to hear that. We actually were able to afford this deck after my grandmother passed away and left us some money. We were going to save up until we could put *this* deck on though, as it runs the full length of the house and maximizes entertainment area. In any event, Reno costs always seem to escalate. I’m still waiting for the project that comes in under budget.
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Fred - it looks great. We also spent the weekend putting a (Thompsons) water seal on our deck and not at all happy with the result… I hope to post the sad tale and some photos tomorrow, but here’s a hint - it looks like tomato soup - but very uneven tomato soup. I’m hoping, once you’ve seen the pictures - that you might have some suggestions….
Glad you got a better result. We live, we learn, we grow…