Our deck was looking a bit shabby this year (2nd summer we've had the house) so we got this great idea to re-stain our 300sq ft deck.
So we get the stain remover and I mixed it at the 1:1 ratio for opaque stain. We applied the remover and waited 20 minutes. After scrubbing for 45 minutes and maybe 'completing' 1/20th of the deck we realized we needed something better.
So I rented a pressure washer and away I went. Unfortunately this is where things started going horribly wrong. As I was removing the stain remover I was being careful to not remove the wood itself. Sadly it looks like the previous home owner was not so careful. He had pitted the wood trying to remove the old stain (of which he was not so successful anyway - there was old stain everywhere under the new stain)
The only thing I can figure is that - after staining over the shitty job he did removing the old stain he looked at his deck and though - "Well - that looks like shit. I know - I will go get some opaque stain and slop it on everywhere and fill in the divots with it!
So, here we are - 2 coats of stain remover later (the second coat was 1:2 water to stain remover which is a stronger mix than anything they have on the back and let it sit for 40 minutes) and we are still having to go over a large chunk of the deck with sanders to get the last of the stain/smooth out the divots.
Fuck me - I think we have spent some 14 hours on the deck and we have at least another 3-4 of stain removing/sanding let alone the brightener and actually re-staining the deck....
FML
/end blog/rant
So we get the stain remover and I mixed it at the 1:1 ratio for opaque stain. We applied the remover and waited 20 minutes. After scrubbing for 45 minutes and maybe 'completing' 1/20th of the deck we realized we needed something better.
So I rented a pressure washer and away I went. Unfortunately this is where things started going horribly wrong. As I was removing the stain remover I was being careful to not remove the wood itself. Sadly it looks like the previous home owner was not so careful. He had pitted the wood trying to remove the old stain (of which he was not so successful anyway - there was old stain everywhere under the new stain)
The only thing I can figure is that - after staining over the shitty job he did removing the old stain he looked at his deck and though - "Well - that looks like shit. I know - I will go get some opaque stain and slop it on everywhere and fill in the divots with it!
So, here we are - 2 coats of stain remover later (the second coat was 1:2 water to stain remover which is a stronger mix than anything they have on the back and let it sit for 40 minutes) and we are still having to go over a large chunk of the deck with sanders to get the last of the stain/smooth out the divots.
Fuck me - I think we have spent some 14 hours on the deck and we have at least another 3-4 of stain removing/sanding let alone the brightener and actually re-staining the deck....
FML
/end blog/rant
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