Stain the Deck — RET-ADD.com

Howdy all.

Not much happening lately. Most days I either water the grass (trying to get the new seed to take), or mow the grass, at a high setting to not kill the new grass. And throw down bug killer and try to chase the moles and chipmunks away from the house/shed/yard. The chippies love to dig long tunnels in and out of structures.

But, this week I started a project. The deck needed to be sealed/stained to try and keep the rot away. And, to make it look a little better.

I quickly decided I couldn’t do the entire thing in one round. So, I split it into about a 65-45 two-piece job. I figured there will be a little overlap in the work. Thus the total of 110.

Anyway, step one was to move everything on the outer section of the deck, up near the house, and pressure wash the wood. That did leave some bare wood here and there.

Notice how “dusty” the drying deck became after washing.

Many places ended up with bare wood as the old stain chipped off.

One of the reasons I chose to do the outer section first, was to try out a paint sprayer, and wanting to stay away from the house’s white siding!!

Well, I did put down plastic to protect plants and concrete areas.

And protecting the shrubs along the side.

I even protected the concrete around the steps.

So, I did all that, and the electric sprayer worked for crap.. The reviews suggested it could work with deck stain. Well not at full concentration. Shoot, I even tried about 50-50 stain-water and it couldn’t get through. I did get the sprayer to work with pure water, but that ain’t very useful..

So, I was back to using a deck painting brush, from a paint-tray, and regular paint brushes.

That took a lot longer. And is quite frustrating trying to get into the cracks between deck boards and the crevices around rails.

However, the first section is done. And if I say so myself, only looks half bad.

Notice you can’t even see the board replacement I did a month or so ago. Looks almost new.

I now need to wait overnight for this to dry, and then can move things back to their places out there. I do want to use a clear seal on the cedar deck boxes. First they need a little pressure washing too. I have the cedar clear seal paint.

As for the last 45 percent of the deck, well that gets to wait a bit. My supply of stain is almost out. Oh, I forgot to mention all the issues I’ve had trying to get this stain. The company shipping it hasn’t used clips on the can lids, and out of 7 gallon cans I’ve ordered, only 2 made it to me. Rest is on the loading dock floors across the country for poor UPS. Much too red for them.

So, I am now waiting for a 5 gallon can from Home Depot (takes a week for delivery, and they don’t have this color in-store).

And, to top off the frustrations with this project, the same brand/color in the cans were different shades. One more red, the other more brown. The “brown” matched up to the 1/2 gallon I had left from prior owner. Thus, it was the top coat I used. I sure hope the 5 gallon is more brown than red…

Other than deck work, and grass work, I’ve been doing a lot of tree trimming and burning of logs. I’m getting to the point where I’m not in total terror every time I use the battery chainsaw to cut up the limbs.

Also did some pressure cleaning of exterior walls of the house to knock off crud from the bugs that have invaded the area (midges). I did have the plants and yard sprayed by Orkin to try and keep the skeeters and midges to a minimum. It helped. A little.

That’s about it for now. I’ll update when I complete this project.

Enjoy Life,