Stained and Weatherproofed: The Deck

It turns out that the hardest part about sealing the deck and fence wasn't finding a warm enough day to do it.  The hardest part was deciding on a shade of stain.  Originally we were going to chicken out and just coat everything in clear for the winter and revisit the issue in the spring, but then we realized all the extra work involved with stripping the clear coat off the deck.   So it was time for some quick decisions.

On one side of our house, we have cedar central - a cedar house with a cedar fence and a cedar deck. On the other side we have natural  stockade.  Taking the lemon ice shade of yellow that is our house into account - the cedar is too orange and natural yellow (the original raw wood) clashes. Redwood is too red, pine is another wrong yellow.  We didn't want to paint it.  Eventually we took our cue from the front porch - the rich dark brown looked great with the house. We went with a shade called "wood chip" by Behr.

It was a very chilly morning... ignore the frost!

We chose a type of semi-transparent weatherproofing stain that's supposed to last at least 6 years on the deck and 8 years on the fence - the longest lasting and lowest maintenance option available at Home Depot.  It also has a more flexible temperature range than most paints and stains, allowing us to apply it anytime it's above 40 degrees outside. Key this time of year!

Staining the deck was a bigger project than we thought.  As usual, I foolishly understimated the time investment.  I thought I could get 2 coats of stain on a small deck in an afternoon by myself.  I also forgot it gets dark now at 4:30.   I had to finish the first coat in the dark with a flashlight!   Needless to say I may have missed a couple spots...  though the second coat we did together over the long weekend went much faster with teamwork and we were done in a couple of hours.

We really love the way it came out.  The dark stain compliments the lemon ice siding well and the color goes well with my overall vision of the future backyard too.  In the spring we'll get some lattice for underneath and stain it to match the deck.