Staining our deck

Remember here when I talked about getting a new deck.  We had grey composite flooring and wooden rails added to our existing apron and poles.  It looked like this:


and this:


Not so pretty!!  I planned to stain everything the same color right after I let the wood cure for about a month.  Um yeah, then it got blistering hot here in TN.  I barely even went outside.  I certainly wasn't about to stay outside long enough  to stain this puppy!

Enter last week when it cooled down a little and I was able to head out to work on the deck.


I started by sanding (with the same mouse sander I always use) the bare wood down to get rid of uneven spots and prep the wood for stain.


Safety first here using a really nice respirator sent to me by 3M.  I'm a tiche on the claustrophobic side and hate my face covered so I normally don't use any sort of  mask when painting or staining.  But this respirator  (amazon affiliate link) has a valve on it that allows the wearer to breath in cool air.   I didn't freak out at all wearing it.  And my lungs said thank you!


For the stain I chose this semi solid deck stain by Cabot in Fieldstone color from Lowes.  The semi solid allows the grain of the wood to show but still has good coverage of the wood.  I thought the color matched our composite very well.



Then we stained and stained.


And stained some more.  It took 2-3 coats in some places to get all the wood covered.


But it turned out so pretty!!


Look at that!  I barely even remember sweating myself to almost death staining it!!  


And just so you don't have to scroll back up to the top, here is a before and after.  What a difference!



, 52 Mantles