eClean Magazine has featured our Deck Stripping: A Visual Guide photo gallery in their current magazine edition, issue 26, featuring wood restoration experts in the industry.
This job in Hamden, CT that they featured had three areas of decking, one that was painted with white paint, the other had a stain and lastly a new cedar section under the porch. Each section was built at different times of this house’s life and constructed of different types of wood. This can present a problem when a homeowner is used to film forming finishes which cover the wood in a uniform color. Unfortunately that homogenous finish is what got them to the point where they needed to strip their deck in the first place.
After the deck was stripped, sanded and buffed an oil preservative was applied. This can make the paint that was stuck deep in the cracks of wood appear more prominent. However, after time this will tone down and the oil will seep under those cracks and loosen the unreachable remaining paint. We had gone back 7 months later to restore the roof and indeed this was the case as is shown in the last photo of the article and the photo below.

This deck is shown 7 months after it was stripped and restored. The house was built in 1761 and, as is often the case with older homes projects were done at different times. The lighter wood under the chairs was an older, pressure-treated wood deck that had white paint that we stripped, the deck closer to the koi pond was pressure-treated, but had no paint and lastly the newest area of decking under the porch was cedar. We applied the same light brown oil and in all cases each section of deck wore the color differently. However the effect works well and oftentimes we will get asked to create this look on homes.