So today I put two coats of the gray solid stain on the top rail of half of the deck railing and one coat of the stain on the bottom rail of half. I expect the entire staining will take three days of work.
It looks good. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it stands up to our winters better than paint.
Once I'm done with the staining, I'll paint all of the vertical elements of the railing black. I may or may not get to all of the painting this season. I'll be happy with just getting the horizontal surfaces stained this year and paint on the verticals next year, if that's how it works out.
How was your weekend? Did you do anything fun?
Looks great, Lili. I'm hopeful that you'll be much happier with the opaque stain than you were with the paint. We've done opaque stain for trim and deck railings on our last three properties, and we're very happy with it. If it wears or fades, you just put on more, without any of the prep you'd need to do with paint. That's a double-thumbs-up for us!
ReplyDeleteThe only time we've had opaque stain peel was when we stained a small back deck we replaced last fall. A heavy thunderstorm came in unexpectedly right after we finished staining. Whoops! It obviously never got a chance to sink in and dry. I'll have to knock the strands off of that, and restain this summer; but that was operator error/act of God, not the fault of the stain. Hope you're getting a little downtime between all of your projects, too! Sara
Hi Sara,
DeleteThank you, Sara. Fortunately, no rain last night. Clouds came in in the late afternoon, worrying me a bit. But it stayed dry, as the forecast had predicted. I'll be taking today off from work. I fell yesterday and am having shoulder pain (where I impacted when I fell). I don't think anything is broken or torn, just bruised. Luckily I fell into dirt and there were no rocks in the area. So, I'll take today off and see if I can get back to it tomorrow.
I'm glad to hear that opaque stains have worked well for you in the past. It gives me hope for my project.
So sorry about your fall, Lili! You've been working so hard, I'm sure a day off will do you good, if you can put the project on the back-burner of your mind for the day, too. :) Take care! Sara
DeleteThank you, Sara. I took yesterday very easy and wore a sling for 24 hours. I worked a half day today and am a little sore, but not too bad. I'll be better soon, I'm sure.
DeleteThat looks like a tedious job staining between all of the balusters. But you are great at those kind of jobs. When we had our porch built a couple of years ago, we used composite material, so hopefully we won't have any projects like this. Low maintenance was one of our criteria when we were designing it. This is our age-in-place house, so we are planning for the future when we won't be able/or want to do those kind of jobs.
ReplyDeleteHi Live and Learn,
DeleteThe work in between balusters isn't too bad. I use cardboard to hold against each baluster as I stain up against it without putting too much stain on the white paint. And I tape off the larger posts. But it's true, those areas do take more time and care than the upper rails.
When we built the deck, we could afford the composite flooring but not composite railings. Sometimes there just isn't enough money to buy future convenience. I'm glad for you, though.
I just read about your fall, Lili. Sorry that it happened. I hope this finds you not as sore and able to move as you need to.
DeleteThank you, Live and Learn. I had a scuffle with a rhododendron and azalea bush. The shrubbery won. I joke about it, but it really caught me off guard and was unnerving. I had that momentary thought as I was falling, "I guess this is how it ends." Fortunately, it was into dirt with no rocks around. Our yard has a lot of rocks, decorative and lining paths/beds. So this was unusual that I didn't hit a rock. I also didn't hurt my ankle much, which got caught in the low woody branches of the azalea. God prevented something much worse from happening. I'm improving, I think.
DeleteLili, glad you are not terribly hurt from your fall. I can second everything Sara said about opaque stains. They are easy to paint over except it may need another repaint sooner than regular paints that skin. But it shouldn't peel, so you won't have to go through another prep like the one you just did.
ReplyDeleteWe're having to do some prep work too. This will be our last house painting I hope. Our last one was about 30 years ago. We loved that paint from Sears. It had such a long guarantee and the directions even suggested it could be applied on dirty surfaces. We've touched up along the way, but the paint is still adhering well. Today we worked on repairing a gutter that my dad built. He constructed it with wood and roofing paper. It has some problems but it would not be easy to replace so we're going to just roof patch and seal with a waterproof coating. So I'm definitely doing some fun work too!!
Have a good evening,
Laura
Hi Laura,
DeleteThank you. Yes, what motivated us to choose a stain over repainting was that even though I'll need to re-stain more often than I would repaint, I won't have to sand and scrape each time. And I also think not might protect the wood better. Paint can trap water in the wood, as we found out. Even after a couple of very dry months, the wood was still damp under the paint I scraped.
Good luck with your home improvement projects. I second the quality of Sears products for the home. The items we bought all those years ago have held up better than other brands. So sorry to not have their brand available any longer.
Uh oh, I'm sorry to hear about your fall. An ice pack is generally recommended the first 24-48 hours after an injury like that, and after that, a hot pack. The ice pack can reduce the initial swelling and inflammation, and then the hot pack promotes blood flow to the area for better healing. More information than you wanted, probably. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm interested in the stain vs paint. We have a white painted railing on our front porch that needs to be touched up--do you think that a white stain would work for that? I did a quick Google search and Behr offers a white shade of stain in their house and fence wood stain.
We just got back from our summer vacation, in answer to your question about doing something fun. We went to Michigan's upper peninsula (my son is working up there this summer, so we were able to have him join us for part of the time) and had a wonderful time. We mostly camped, and it's been 4 years since we've done that, but it overall went fairly smoothly.
Your railing is looking sharp!
Kris, this is Sara. I'm pretty sure we put opaque Behr stain over paint on the trim of our first home (way back in the day), and I don't remember any problem (even years of more sun-damage later). We updated the color of brown, and gave it a good coat all over, and it looked great to us. HOWEVER, this was on worn, sun-damaged, milled-to-a-complex-shape trim, which hid flaws, and probably was only ever going to look "so good" in any case. (wink)
DeleteMy only thought/concern about you putting opaque stain over paint is if the paint underneath might still peel at little at some point, or bubble the stain due to different adhesion, if you're doing it on nice, smooth wood and/or you're particularly detailed-oriented about the finish. If there are no edges of the paint, actually sticking up, my GUESS is that you'd be fine; and if it's worn/sanded smooth in the touch-up areas, or really only needs touch-up on heavy-use edges, etc., we would definitely try it with stain, not paint, to try to avoid more peeling later. And to add to Lili's comment above about wear, we've found that any wear/fade there is with Behr opaque that might be sooner than paint is easy to just give a quick freshen-up/touch-up to, with attractive results.
I'm jealous of your camping in the U.P. We did that once, and had a fabulous time! Sara
Thanks, Sara! I'm thinking that if we chose to go that route, we'd sand off the paint. Something to think about.
DeleteGlad you made it to our upper peninsula. We spent most of our time at Pictured Rocks. Gorgeous.
Hi Kris,
DeleteThank you for that information. I wore a sling for 24 hours to immobilize the shoulder and not increase the inflammation. I didn't ice it, but I know I should have. I'll try some heat on it this evening. It's getting better, so I'm pretty sure it's not a bad injury.
About stain. -- is this railing under the eaves of the house or exposed to elements? You may want to look at products that are recommended for deck surfaces, rather than house stain if the railing is out in the open, rather than under the eaves. If the stain is desc riled a "solid" (not "transparent" or "semi-transparent"), it will have the look of matte finish paint. Definitely sand the railing completely first. For brushes, I used a cheap sponge brush and my stain went on really smoothly. Also, I read 2 coats are recommended, Good luck!
Ooh, good point. The railing is exposed to the elements. Thanks for your input!
DeleteKris, we loved Pictured Rocks. It was so scenic, and so peaceful, even the day after Fourth of July celebrations. We hardly saw another person when we went. Sara
DeleteOn the Behr stain, Kris. DH and I were just talking. The Behr product seems to have changed or reformulated over the years. The product we bought for this house is the Waterproofing Stain and Sealer with the gray decking on the package. The product is much thicker and shinier than the stain at our past 2 homes; and we're not altogether sure we didn't used to use the House and Fence stain before. Our local HD just said "This is the product, now", and didn't seem to have anything else; but just now on the Behr site, I saw the House and Fence. It specifically says it resists cracking and peeling, which was what we loved about it. We have less than a year of harsh weather/sun on the deck that didn't peel from the rain, and don't see any peeling or bubbling on the top of the railing and decking boards, so we're happy with it; but we're also not sure that it has sunk in as much as the product(s?) we've used in the past. DH thought I ought to clarify/caveat my previous comments. Sara
DeleteThanks, Sara. This blog community is amazing! So helpful.
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