COST: $120
EFFORT: 100 out of 5
RESULTS: Weary relief
The long, weary chapter about redoing our front porch is just about over, and we couldn’t be more thankful ... or sore and stain-splattered.
It takes a lot of time and effort to sand painted wood down to a bare state, and that’s what we were tasked with doing. We were sick of dealing with a chipping, flaking porch every single summer, and it was all our own fault for doing it wrong the first time around.
As I mentioned last time, we had accidentally chosen a very thick, non-sheer stain formula that was basically a paint (Sico’s Autumn Brown in exterior semi-transparent). Even though you would think “semi-transparent” would mean semi-transparent, it was truly like we’d chosen a dark purple-y brown paint.
We spent several gruelling weeks removing all those years of dark stain using an orbital sander, a belt sander and a rented power-washer. Once the boards were fully bare — just like brand-new wood, except drippy with our frustrated tears — it was time to correct our mistake and choose a stain that would stain, not paint.
We wound up going with Olympic Maximum Stain + Sealant in One since it was on sale, to be honest. But it also promised six years of waterproofing protection, UV defense and a mildew-resistant coating. I picked out a shade called Russet that looked similar to our old Autumn Brown, but — fingers crossed — much, much more sheer.
I admit, I was nervous when we cracked the can and saw a familiar purple-ish tinge. What if it wasn’t sheer enough? But we used a special stain brush (Simms’ XL 100 per cent polyester blend) and brushed it on very lightly, and it looked great. We could still clearly see the wood grain — nothing paint-y about this one. Had we just applied it too thickly last time? (Possibly!) Had we done multiple coats last time, giving it the consistency of a painted finish? (Maybe!)
It was smooth sailing across the length of the porch (which is the whole length of the house) but when we got to the stairs, they still weren’t ready to stain. We were having a lot of trouble getting the old stain off the risers, especially trying to hold our sanders vertically.
Luckily, my handy husband had an epiphany that we could unscrew the stair risers, flip them around and easily sand them down for staining. Genius! (It was our anniversary when he thought of this, so I considered it an excellent present.)
In no time at all, we’d sanded and stained both the risers and the stairs. Once everything was dry, we screwed the risers back into place (facing the opposite direction now) with new screws.
We were finished! Oh, wait ... not quite.
We’re still working on touching up the white paint on our banisters, railings and spindles. It’s tiresome work, but at least it only needs to be freshened up every second summer — and most areas last even longer, since no one’s walking over them.
We’re sticking with the white we’ve always used (Sico’s semi-gloss exterior paint/primer in Natural White) and applying it with our favourite short-handled 1 1/2” brush. Maybe the white will be finished by the time you read this? Likely not, though. Ugh.
After years of putting a Band-Aid over the problem — slapping on more of the paint-like “stain” to hide the chipped areas — it does feel satisfying to have finally taken the porch boards down to bare wood and done things “properly.”
Fingers crossed, the new stain holds up well through the winter and it isn’t a chippy mess when the snow melts in the spring. If that happens, I think I’ll tear down the porch steps in a hysterical rage and just run a metal ladder up to the front door! That’s to code, right?
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