Re-Staining the Deck - The painting

After the pressure wash was done , I had to wait couple of days. The sunny weather turned rainy for couple of days. The third day when the sunshine returned the deck started drying up. That evening I started painting a small area on the deck to check if the color I had got was up to my satisfaction. I had a sample made to order from the paint shop and used a small brush to do one of the side rails. Had to wait for a day to see the effect. Not satisfied tried a secind coat. The next day that looked very tanned. So decided to stick with the color but do only one coat.

Started with the side rails and finished 10 vertical rails in 2 hours. This was in the morning. The summer really helps, the day is as bright as 8 AM in other parts of the world when it is only 6 AM. Since the night darkness sets only by 8, I thought of doing two hours in the morning and 2 in the evening.

It took three days to do the side rails on two sides, before I could do the other sides of the rails , rain came back. So waited for two more days and when the sun returned finished the other two sides in couple of days.

Then started the floor of the deck. I had bought some rollers to paint the floor but used a broad brush instead. Finished the floor in three days., Brought back the plants that were living indoors back to the deck. Now they are happy.

The deck now looks like this.

Re-Staining the Deck - The Pressure Wash

The next thing after cleaning the deck was to remove all dirt and old stain. I went to the local hardware shop(Home Depot) and rented a pressure washer. This is one cool thing in the US. One need not buy expensive DIY equipments if it is not used regularly.

Last Saturday I went to rent the washer at 7 PM. I wanted rent only for four hours but use it for more time.My idea was  to make use of the extended daylight in the evenings (until 8:30 PM) and also the early daylight from 5 AM in summer days. The shop closes at 10 PM each day and on sunday opens only at 8 AM. But could not do it because  there was no working equipment(I think this is a trick many do, and the renter knows this and therefore I was told so).

Then on sunday I went at 8 AM rented the equipment. I had taken my Corolla (Toyota) to bring the equipment. When I saw the size and weight I was in doubt if I could bring it. But the rental guy helped.

After bringing the washer home I had to lift it and roll it (it had two wheels in the front) to the deck., Connect the water pipe, start the motor. The pressure of the water coming out was so much that the old stain and all dirt were all gone. One thing I noticed is, if the nozzle is held to close to the wood, it chips the wood.

Finished the cleaning in two hours and returned the washer back to the shop. The deck color now was something totally different. Just like when one has a jeans that got washed after 7 months.

Re-Staining the Deck - The first Steps

Many who reside in the US are quite aware of this. Just when one, at some point buys a house and make it a nice home, the maintenance of the house slowly creeps in.  This is in addition to  maintaining a home if the family has kids.

For me, it was replacing the water heater past winter and this summer I have taken up Re-Staining the Deck.

The project, being more of a paining one, is something I wanted to do as DIY(Do It Yourself). The first thing I had to do was find out was what is restaining. Actually I had read about this last year. I had to postpone the project last summer because the season got washed out by rain.

So , the first thing is apart from planning , one should really wish that the summer is dry and warm.

This summer it looks like it is going to be dry.

The first thing I did was to revise the steps I learnt last year, There is a lot of DIY videos in the internet that has good points on how to do the re-staining. I like the notes from This Old House website.

The next step is to clear the deck. I had lots of plants growing in pots on my deck that had to be moved. Some of them came indoor and some are on the lawn .

I then used a broom to sweep the deck clean of other items.

The next step is to Pressure Wash the whole deck

The potatoes - too early to harvest perhaps; but made me one happy dude

      One of the may potato plants that was in a pot started to behave like a creeper. I got worried that it kind of died and pulled it out of the pot and was happy to harvest my own first potatoes. The largest one looks like what in Tamizh we call as சாம்பார்  உருளைகிழங்கு (sambAr uruLai Kizhangu).  There are some more little ones so I have replanted the whole plant again.