How to Restore a Gray and Faded Deck

Our deck was built back in November, and was left to "season" until now. This summer, it was time to get started restoring our deck from its gray, faded state. Staining it will help protect the wood from the elements, and the gray film on the surface of the deck was getting slippery.

The wood needed to be prepped before stain could be applied. I used a deck restoring kit (you can find a link to the one I used in my blog post) containing both a cleaner and a brightener. The cleaner was used first, and it was amazing how easy it was to remove the damaged gray wood with a power washer after letting the cleaner sit for a few minutes!
Then the brightener is sprayed on the cleaned wood to adjust the pH back to normal levels. It was so cool to watch the color transform! Here you can see the wood with the cleaner applied (left side) and the brightener working its magic (right side).





Here you can see the cleaned and brightened side of the deck, with the grayed deck in the lower right corner. Look at the difference in the wood!





Once the wood had dried for a few days, it was time to stain! The deck railings took quite a while with a paint brush, but because these areas don't get any wear, I won't have to do it again for years (thank goodness!)





In the end, our deck turned out amazing, and we have spent many hours relaxing in our new space. To see the final product, click on the link below or visit my blog at The Handyman's Daughter and search for "deck."






Original article and pictures take http://www.hometalk.com/9628038/the-never-ending-deck-stain-project site