How to Stain and Protect a Porch

RON HAZELTON: Did you know that Camp Going to Stain a Deck is located in Wattsburg, Pennsylvania?  Well, the Renner family has signed up for a two-day stay.  And I’m the counselor.  The rolling countryside around Wattsburg, Pennsylvania is dotted with picturesque dairy farms.  I can understand why the Renner family who lived just down the road wanted to build their new home here.  They are looking forward to enjoying the view from their front porch.  Once they get it stained and sealed that is and that’s why I am paying them a visit.  Well, good morning.

RON RENNER: Good morning Ron.

RON HAZELTON: Hi, Ron. Hi, Debbie.

DEBBIE RENNER: Hi, nice to meet you.

RON HAZELTON: Hi guys. 

RON RENNER: Courtney and Danielle.

RON HAZELTON: Hi Courtney.

COURTNEY RENNER: Hi.

RON HAZELTON: And Danielle.

RON HAZELTON: And Danielle, I’m Ron.

DANIELLE RENNER: Hi.

RON HAZELTON: The Renner’s deck has just recently been built using pressure treated lumbar.  The family has decided that they want the railing white and the deck itself a red wood color.  With this in mind, Ron and I visit the local home improvement center to pick out the stains.  Okay, for the railing you can use a solid color, but I want you to use a semi-transparent on the deck itself.  That’ll resist wear and keep from creating paths where you walk a lot.

RON RENNER: Good idea.

RON HAZELTON: Another thing is let’s try to find one that has a UV or ultraviolet filter so the deck won’t fade.

RON RENNER: Okay.

RON HAZELTON: And most importantly in your case, you’ve got new pressure treated lumbar, so we want something like this that could be used immediately on new pressure treated wood. We also picked up a variety of tools for applying the stain.  Some pans here.  Okay and then a couple brushes down here and here we go and I think we’re all set.  Back at the house, we decide how we are going to approach the project.  Let’s do the railings first and to keep the deck from getting any of the white on there, we should put down some plastic to protect that, okay?

RON RENNER: Okay.

RON HAZELTON: We are all going to work together?  We start by applying wide masking tape to the deck at the base of the posts and to the bottom of the siding.  Then, we spread out plastic sheeting to cover the entire deck and the stairs.  The edges are stapled along the wall and rim joist and taped around the base of the posts.  With the deck and steps protected, we are ready to start staining.  Now, there’s one rule we have to sort of keep in mind.  This is true any time you are painting something like this.  You know, sometimes in life you have to start at the bottom and then work your way up.  Well on railings like this, whether you are staining or painting you got to start at the top and then work your way down because you are going to drip and this way you catch the drips as you go.  Come all the way down to the top railing.  Excellent.  Okay, you like to sing while you are working?  Oh, you have a very nice voice, you know, I whistle while I work?  You want to whistle?  Sure you can, try it.  Just give it a try.  Rollers are great for applying stain quickly and neatly, but I don’t like to rely just on the roller because stain is not paint, it needs to be pushed into the pores of the wood.  So let me trade tools with you here, Danielle.  Here’s, this is a painting pad, okay, I’ve already got paint on here and what I want you to do now is just to go over the top of this and kind of just light pressure, just long strokes like this, you are just going to push that stain in.  Here’s the big person’s paint pad.

DEBBIE RENNER: Okay.

RON HAZELTON: It’s the same material.  Just for larger surfaces, it works a little bit faster.  Reach up to the top, that’s good, okay, now bring it down, one long smooth stroke, we are forcing that stain into the pores of the wood that we applied with the roller.  Very nice.  A brush is the best tool to use for the underside of the railings.  For the small vertical posts, or balusters, we use a variety of tools, beginning with a small pad which is perfect for applying stain to the ends.  This offset roller turns out to be an excellent tool for reaching into that narrow space between the balusters.  Now, for the face of these balusters, right here, we’ll go back to our regular roller.  And finally we work the stain into the pores of the wood with the painting pad.  Well we’ve just about finished the railing and the day is coming to a close.  Everybody hold your hands up, okay if you’ve got paint, you’ve got to come back in the morning.  You’ve got paint.  You don’t have any paint.

RON RENNER: No, I don’t.

RON HAZELTON: You got to work tomorrow?

RON RENNER: Yes, I do.

RON HAZELTON: Okay.

RON RENNER: Great thank you.

RON HAZELTON: So, it’s Ron and the girls tomorrow. Be here bright and early and we’ll hit the deck.

RON RENNER: All right, thank you.

DEBBIE RENNER: Sounds good, thanks. Bye-bye.

RON HAZELTON: Good morning girls, how are you?

GIRL RENNER: Good morning Ron, time to go to work.

RON HAZELTON: Oh, this is coffee for me?  Oh, thank you very much. Okay girls, I’ll be right out.  Just a couple minutes.  Thank you.  With the railing finished, this is the day to tackle the deck.  We start by removing the staples holding down the plastic sheeting.  And making sure the tape on the siding is tucked underneath the bottom edge.  A wide putty knife is the perfect tool for this.  We are going to use this same piece of plastic now to protect the railing.  So I need to make like a slit right here, there we go.  Now we can take it over either side of the post.  Since the stain we’ll be putting down on the deck is transparent, we spend a few minutes sanding out lumbar stains that would otherwise show through.  Girls, welcome to Camp Going to Spray a Deck.  Okay, I am glad that you are here today because we are going to have fun.  This is the fun part of this whole job.  This is semi-transparent stain, so it’s almost, it’s very thin and because it’s that thin we can apply it with a garden sprayer, which will make everything go a lot faster.  But remember, no spraying each other, just the deck.  So let me pour this in here.  Oh, Ron made a mess.  Okay there we go.  That’s why we put the plastic down.  Next step is to pressurize the sprayer.  Here I got a hand from the girls.  Okay girls, are we all pumped up? 

DEBBIE RENNER: Ready to go.

RON HAZELTON: All right, let’s start this thing now, hold that sprayer about six edges away from the edge here.  Just go back and forth in nice smooth strokes like this.  Now this is a very fast way to apply stain.  The only problem is that I want to work this stain down into the pores of the wood, like we did the white stain over here.

DEBBIE RENNER: Okay.

RON HAZELTON: So, any kind of brush will work, but this is actually a deck brush right here.  It’s designed for this purpose.  And we don’t have to bend over to use it.  Okay, Debbie, why don’t you take over and do a little spraying here.

DEBBIE RENNER: Okay.

RON HAZELTON: The trick here is to spray the stain a section at a time, an area about six feet square would be about right. Stop and brush the stain into the surface of the wood, then move on to the next section.  You ladies had this well in hand.

DEBBIE RENNER: All righty.

RON HAZELTON: Now I could brush this on, but this material is very thin and I know it is just going to be easier just to use the same sprayer.  However, once again, we don’t want to just let that lie there, I want to take a brush and we’re going to brush this in.  This is called back brushing.  Once again, the whole idea is just to work this into the wood.  Well this job is finished and it’s time for the unveiling.  Okay my deck staining pals, one, two, three!  Let’s pull it off.  Look at this, look at this.  Before the deck was stained, it looked like an add on, now it blends with the house creating eye-pleasing detail and texture.  And most of the credit has to go to Team Renner, whom I’ve dubbed certified HouseCalls Deck Refinishers.  Here’s your honorary roller, let’s finish off with a HouseCalls salute.  Yeah!!  You know you guys are all prepared to do your own house now and this is a fantastic looking house, can I see inside?

GIRL RENNER: Sure.

GIRL RENNER: Come on in.