Deck Remodel

mantis

Whats up everyone?
My deck is about 5 years or so old now and I'm tired of staining it. The first stain lasted about 2 years , really 1 and the second year it looked like crap. So I redid it and it came out ok. I used a clear Stain sealer toned as natural cedar. It looks good the first year then the 2nd it gets ruff looking. My deck does sit in the sun all day with no shade at all.
This time around I decided to use a product I found called Deck Restore. It's like a truck spray in bed liner , thick and textured. I put my first coat on after I redid all the railings with a solid stain sealer. That took 2 days and 2 coats.
The deck looks cool and I hope it lasts what they say it will which is about 8 to 10 years. Once this wears out I'm going Treks , screw all this work to keep your deck nice. Staining your deck sucks.

I'll post some pic's later.

mantis

Erik Tracy

mantis wrote: »

Whats up everyone?
My deck is about 5 years or so old now and I'm tired of staining it. The first stain lasted about 2 years , really 1 and the second year it looked like crap. So I redid it and it came out ok. I used a clear Stain sealer toned as natural cedar. It looks good the first year then the 2nd it gets ruff looking. My deck does sit in the sun all day with no shade at all.
This time around I decided to use a product I found called Deck Restore. It's like a truck spray in bed liner , thick and textured. I put my first coat on after I redid all the railings with a solid stain sealer. That took 2 days and 2 coats.
The deck looks cool and I hope it lasts what they say it will which is about 8 to 10 years. Once this wears out I'm going Treks , screw all this work to keep your deck nice. Staining your deck sucks.

I'll post some pic's later.

Well, at least you are off the streets at night.

I love my home - would not trade it for anything, but the upkeep can be a ****, eh? :cheesygrin:

mantis

This was before the redue and during.

mantis

Erik Tracy wrote: »

Well, at least you are off the streets at night.

I love my home - would not trade it for anything, but the upkeep can be a ****, eh? :cheesygrin:

Whats funny about it as I purchased my house brand new and figured I wouldn't have to do much of anything for years and years. Well that never healed true from day one. I didn't have to fix anything but painting which I hate I have been doing every year since we moved in. Wife wants something painted something different then it was before. Not to mention the entire house was builder special off white when we moved in so I have been slowly coloring each room to my wives taste. The Deck was build on years later and I've been working on that each year since new either pressure washing , cleaning or restraining. I got talked out of trek the first time around. Not next time I'll tell you that. This is a freaking a lot of work. And my deck is only 14 x 24 with 2 stairways.

mantis

This was the first time around in 2007. Before and after first coat of stain. I didn't really care for how it came out but the second coat fixed it up a bit. I didn't get any pic's afterwards.

chumlie

Looks like the view i have on my deck, rooftops as far as the eye can see. Nice job. Hope ya didn't get sunburned working on it.

mantis

Thanks but day one when I was restoring the rails I wore a sleeveless shirt , big mistake and no suntan lotion. I got burned on my upper arms. From that day forward I loaded up on lotion and wore sleeved shirts. No more sunburn , won't make that mistake again.

chumlie

Made the same mistake myself. No shirt at all. Lesson learned !!!

Drenis

Even with a shirt on there is still risk. Like your neck and fore arms. Even your face if you`re not normally out much.

Nice deck though!

scottyboy76

Nice job, and you are right about trex, expensive as hell, but virtually permanent.

Dont decks look nice new, I can almost smell the wood from those pics.

BTW, have you ever jumped off your storage building into your neighbors pool, i would be tempted.

hochpt21

Mantis...maybe you can swing by my house now. I have a three tiered deck that I need to stain in the next couple weeks before we put our house up for sale. Stained it summer of '09 and its in pretty rough shape. I hate staining so much, I'm tempted to just chop the deck of and let it fall down into the neighbours house!!

pearsall001

Looks great Dan!! Very nice work. But like you said, when it's time to do a total makeover I can highly recommend going Trex & vinyl railings. I'm going on 10yrs with mine & it looks like the day it was built. Worth every penny over the cost of wood.

mantis

scottyboy76 wrote: »

Nice job, and you are right about trex, expensive as hell, but virtually permanent.

Dont decks look nice new, I can almost smell the wood from those pics.

BTW, have you ever jumped off your storage building into your neighbors pool, i would be tempted.

Maybe if I was 20+ years younger I might have thought as you do , but I'm no spring chicken nor would I do it , but maybe LOL.

mantis

hochpt21 wrote: »

Mantis...maybe you can swing by my house now. I have a three tiered deck that I need to stain in the next couple weeks before we put our house up for sale. Stained it summer of '09 and its in pretty rough shape. I hate staining so much, I'm tempted to just chop the deck of and let it fall down into the neighbours house!!

Staining absolutely sucks. I have 3 days invested in mine and I still need one more floor coat. I was going to finish it today but I came in after the first coat , got a shower , ate some lunch with my kids , watched some Star Trek Next Gen , Played Xbox while I was waiting for it to dry to apply the 2nd coat and said Eff it. I'm gonna finish tomorrow morning.

I suggest paying someone to do it for you. Stain sucks **** and is why I went with Deck Restore for the floor surfaces. Behr Premium solid stain for the rails. But let someone else do all that. This will be my last Deck staining of any kind.

mantis

pearsall001 wrote: »

Looks great Dan!! Very nice work. But like you said, when it's time to do a total makeover I can highly recommend going Trex & vinyl railings. I'm going on 10yrs with mine & it looks like the day it was built. Worth every penny over the cost of wood.

Thats exactly what I'm going to do when all this goes south. My Footers are strong , the frame is heavy duty in 2 x 10's , it's built as if I wanted to add on a room according to my brother in law who built it. So going trek will be easy for someone to come out and install it for me. I'm not doing that either , it's not what I do and I'm not even going to try.

pearsall001

anonymouse wrote: »

I am in the market for a new deck, and I'm torn on Trex. My neighbor has it and has mold issues. His is only 5 years old. He has black stains in the grain which will not come out, even with power washing. We do not get excessive rain in Chicago. Currently, I am leaning towards Ipe, which is a dense hardwood that requires low maintainance.

What grade of Trex do you have? Do you have any mold issues at all? Trex is actually cheaper than Ipe, and easier to source, so I'd go with it were it not for the mold danger.

I got mine when Trex first came out. It only came in gray & I don't know about it's grade if any. Now a days the skies the limit on colors & wood looks for Trex. I have to laugh about the mold stains you're talking about. Mine was installed in the spring (about 10yrs ago) & I have a lot of trees that were a huge mess (they're gone now). Well anyway after the first winter & come the next spring I was out getting all the leaves off & I went into a panic mode. The leaf & mold stains wouldn't come out!!! I was beside myself & was pissed. I tried eyerything...power washing, TSP cleaner & anything I could find but nothing worked.

Then I found the product that worked like a charm...liquid pool chlorine ($12.99 for a 5gal pail from the pool store). I put it in a gallon sprayer & spray away. Right before my eyes the stains bubbled up & I simply hosed them off. I've been doing this every year now & I actually use it to clean everything. From the Trex, the white vinyl railings (still look brand new) pool & deck furniture, house aluminum siding (**** just rolls off), concrete...you name it. The best damn cleaner in the world & dirt cheap, give it a shot I know you'll be happy with the results. Just wet the surface before you spray it on.

tonyb

There are different grades of that Trex stuff. Mold is an issue with the cheaper stuff. My neighbor, a carpenter by trade, has warned me about it before. It's no so much the material on the outside of the board, but whats on the inside that varies between grades. Thats how he explained it to me anyway.

Toolfan66

Putting down Trex or Veranda both are good quality is fairly easy to put down. I finished my deck last year and went with Veranda the cost is a little less then the Trex and I love it. After winter I came out and power washed it just to clean the dirt off and done. Gotta love it..


One thing I do during winter months is keep the snow off my deck, I purchased a snow shovel with a plastic edge to keep it off, my thoughts is the less water expanding and contracting in the joints the better..

My deck is 16'X16' with a 8'x16' step down with steps and powder coated steel railing I built at the shop..

mudwrx

Hey Mantis, it's amazing you posted this. My wife and I were just looking in to the Restore product and were looking for anyone that had used it. We are looking to "restore" our front porch and balcony, as the previous owners never took care of the wood and it is beat up and starting to splinter. The Restore is supposed to repair/fill in splinters and such and looks like it has textured, almost brick like finish to it.

What was your experience with it? Was it easy enough to put down? I saw in Home Depot you could also mix to get a desired color. Did you put two coats down? Any issues to be aware of?

We are thinking about doing this until we replace everything with composite.

We are currently building a deck in the back yard now. We went with Veranda composite and vinyl railings, it is looking very good. It should be finished today or tomorrow, I'll post pictures when it is done.

mudwrx

I also wanted to ask if you had any issues with the gaps/spaces between boards? Does it "glob" up between these? Or does it simply fall through? Did you have to use a brush at all? Do you have any close up pictures of the boards?

Sorry for all the questions, we are really interested and you're the first person we heard using this product so far...

ken brydson

mudwrx wrote: »

I also wanted to ask if you had any issues with the gaps/spaces between boards? Does it "glob" up between these? Or does it simply fall through? Did you have to use a brush at all? Do you have any close up pictures of the boards?

Sorry for all the questions, we are really interested and you're the first person we heard using this product so far...

I'm looking into it as well. There are videos on the Deck Restore website. The biggest complaints I read is that it doesn't cover nearly as many sf as advertised.

mudwrx

ken brydson wrote: »

I'm looking into it as well. There are videos on the Deck Restore website. The biggest complaints I read is that it doesn't cover nearly as many sf as advertised.

I've read that as well. At least you can simply prepare for that and hopefully return any unused product.

I was also wondering the best way to apply it below the railings and other tight places the roller cannot get in to, while keeping an consistent look?

cnh

Beautiful work Dan. Unfortunately, I remember reading a number of supposedly "unbiased" assessments of most deck treatments and those reports claimed that NOTHING lasted more than a couple of years and actually started to disintegrate within 6 months to a year! Don't know how true that is. But I do know up here under Canada, pretty much nothing can deal with the nasty winters and all the salt. You put down some pressure treated wood and just wait till it rots or you spend the big bucks for that new composite material that is NOT made of anything that can rot away--don't remember what it's called.

Hopefully, you'll have better luck!

cnh

mrbiron

I was looking into the deck restore material as well. Once i realized that my deck was too far gone i looked into other avenues...then my boss asked me if i wanted all of the left over 34(count) 16' Azek decking boards for free? The only catch was i had to grab them by this past saturday. So i took them and am laughing all the way to bank!! Now to buy the PT. 2x10 joists really is the way to go. Then you don't have to worry about some she-cow dropping it like it's hot and cracking your boards.

The only real downside to Azek is it gets slippery, but i don't plan on running like an a-hole on my deck and if i do, the beer will most likely make me forget all about it.

steveinaz

What's that green fuzzy stuff in your backyard?

mrbiron

What's that green fuzzy stuff in your backyard?

Dyed back hair. It falls out with age...

mantis

mudwrx wrote: »

Hey Mantis, it's amazing you posted this. My wife and I were just looking in to the Restore product and were looking for anyone that had used it. We are looking to "restore" our front porch and balcony, as the previous owners never took care of the wood and it is beat up and starting to splinter. The Restore is supposed to repair/fill in splinters and such and looks like it has textured, almost brick like finish to it.

What was your experience with it? Was it easy enough to put down? I saw in Home Depot you could also mix to get a desired color. Did you put two coats down? Any issues to be aware of?

We are thinking about doing this until we replace everything with composite.

We are currently building a deck in the back yard now. We went with Veranda composite and vinyl railings, it is looking very good. It should be finished today or tomorrow, I'll post pictures when it is done.

I didn't want to stain again as stain sucks **** and as noted above don't last at all. Never the spec'd time anyway.

The Restore product is really nice. There is a good video on their website that shows you how to apply it correctly. I followed the video and did some tweaking of my own. One thing is it's awesome. I'll snap some more pic's as I Put some of our furniture back on it as well as the grill(Which I want to replace soon , it's 8 years old and starting to show it).
I applied the first coat and it took about 3 hours. I let it dry overnight as I wasn't sure how long I could wait to apply another coat. This stuff isn't cheap so I wanted to make sure I didn't it right. I put the second coat on to fill any cracks and thing spots and it looks very even.
I didn't however like doing the steps with it. It's to sandy and difficult to apply . On the deck surface it was easy but you have to really take your time as said on the video. Roll slow , load heavy and it comes out very nice.
I had it colored Natural cedar to off set the Cedar tone I applied to the rails. I wanted a slightly different tone to give it a 2 tone look. I'm very happy with the color choices.
Pointer: I suggest doing your stairs vertical surfaces with a colored stain. You can do the tops with restore just again take your time. I was getting tired on the second coat and probably could have done a better job on them but they came out ok. I'll snap a few pic's so you and see how they came out. I tried to use the Restore on the vertical surfaces and I'm not happy how they came out.

I'm hoping it lasts as it's very nice after it dries. I waited 2 full days before I walked on it and put furniture on it. They say you can after 24 hours.

Good luck with your project. If fills the cracks and stops splinters as it's very thick. If you ever saw a spray in bed liner for a truck , it's very like that.

mantis

steveinaz wrote: »

What's that green fuzzy stuff in your backyard?

The grass? I believe that was a very dry year and our sod basically got damaged from lack of water. I had to restore that to with stuff my landscaper gave me and tons of water. It looks pretty good now.
If you check out the deck shots of the first coat of Restore , you can see the grass came in very nice this year.

EndersShadow

Dan: why not just go composite so you rebuilt it once and are done for a long time.....

mantis

EndersShadow wrote: »

Dan: why not just go composite so you rebuilt it once and are done for a long time.....

Next time for sure.