When we built our deck last year it was pretty late in the season so we decided to wait until this summer to put a water seal on the wood. Turns out it was the right decision because apparently you should let the wood “breathe” for a year before applying any sort of stain or paint (who knew?).
Chris decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather last weekend and get ‘er done. He started by clearing the deck of all the furniture and giving it a good wash with Behr Premium Deckover Cleaner. When the deck was completely dry he started putting a coat of primer on all the railings. Eventually this will get painted white, but seeing how bright the primer ended up we’re probably going to get the paint tinted a bit first.
We found that over the course of the year the brown colour of our pressure treated had faded a lot, so we decided to go with a tinted seal instead of clear. We chose Thompson’s Waterseal Waterproofing Stain in maple brown.
It has a subtle brown colour and, according to the can, is guaranteed to protect the deck from water for 4 years.
