Choosing The Right Stain For Your Deck

This year we had to stain our deck.

We didn't bother last summer and once spring rolled around it was evident that our deck was in much need of some TLC in the form of stain & paint.

We had stain left over, a whole gallon. But when my husband went to the hardware store to 
pick upmore stain they told him that oil based stains will no longer be sold in Canada starting in September.

So home he came without any stain.

And we wondered what we were going to do. Should we buy oil based stain anyways and deal with it next year (or the year after)? How would water based stain adhere to the remaining stain on our deck? How can we get the remaining stain off of the deck?

A couple of weeks went by and finally we both went back to the hardware store and purchased deck stain stripper and a pressure washer...and we were dreading all the pre-stain work ahead of us.

Then the in-laws visited and my Father in-law, 
who happens to work at a  hardware store told us about

Sico Exterior Stains.

It's a water based stain that can go right over your existing stained surface. So your wondering why I didn't think to ask him since he works at a hardware store?

Well, that's just it - It never crossed my mind to ask him.

So anyways we returned the stain stripper & pressure washer and bought the Sico stain.

But wait...I had a brilliant idea! I thought that it would 
be a great time to change the color of 
our deck, I was thinking of going with something
in the blue color family.

But as it turns out, it was a horrible idea. 
An epic fail.

So all that work for nothing.

Back to the all to familiar brown.

A safe color but lovely just the same.

We choose Polar Night.

The railings are painted with a color match, 

we brought in a piece of our cream trim to the 

hardware store so they could color match it for us.

Pretty darn close!

I love how clean and fresh it looks now.

See the yellow bench on the right?

My hubs and I made it out of a headboard and footboard.

Check it out here

Here are couple of night time shots.

Take your time when choosing stain.

Make sure the color you choose will coordinate

with existing colors you have and your

outdoor furniture & flower pots.

Here's a Chip It of one of the pics.

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