Staining and Painting an Old Deck Brown with White Railings

Staining and painting our old deck was a top priority when we moved into our house. Not only was the deck completely faded, but the color was a dark red that I didn’t feel worked well with the bright and neutral farmhouse style look of our home. Each DIY project we have completed around our home has slowly, one by one, been eliminating all things orange and red in our home, and making things fresh and bright with cool greys, whites, and rustic wood tones. By staining our deck brown and painting the railings white, the old red deck is completely transformed into a new and refreshed outdoor living space that matches with the cozy cottage feel of our home. Here is the complete DIY tutorial for how to stain and old deck brown and paint the railings white!

Before & After Photos

*Note that the after picture here also includes our DIY clear corrugated pergola, not installed at the time of this tutorial.

How to Stain and Paint and Old Deck Tutorial

Materials

• Stain Pad with handle
• Deck cleaner
• Stiff cleaning brush and Handle
• 1 Gallon sprayer
• Wood stain stripper
• Deck stain of choice (Olympic Elite, Semi-transparent Dark Oak)
• Exterior white paint of choice (Glidden Premium Exterior Paint, Satin, White)

Step 1 – Clean the deck & prep the area

Before you can begin the fun of new stain or paint, you need to prep your deck by thoroughly cleaning it. If your deck has peeling or chipping, you may need to sand it down and use filler or replace boards if necessary. Begin cleaning by sweeping and rinsing the deck of all debris. Then you will need to use a deck cleaner with a tank sprayer and a deck scrub brush to scrub the dirt and mildew completely off the deck. Follow the directions on the cleaner.

You also will need to protect anything nearby that you do not want harmed by the chemicals in cleaning and stripping the deck, especially plants and trees. Part of our deck is surrounded by trees, so we covered the trees with an extra large tarp so none of the chemicals from the prep would harm them when we sprayed it off with a hose.

Step 2 – Strip the old stain off the deck

If your deck has been previously stained and you plan to change the color, you will want to prep your deck with a stain stripper. Our deck is made of cedar wood decking, which had been stained a red-tone color about 10 years ago, so we needed to strip it. Be sure to move all items away from the deck that might be dusted with the spray as your stripping.

The stripper is applied the same way as the cleaner, with a tank sprayer and then after sitting a specified amount of time (see instructions on your stripper), scrub with a deck scrub brush and rinse thoroughly with a pressure washer. We noticed a regular pressure hose did not effectively remove all the stain, but using a pressure washer carefully was effective. Be careful with a pressure washer, too much pressure can gauge and splinter the wood.

You can see in the photo above the area that has been stripped and the part of the deck that had not. 

Since we wanted to remove the old stain as much as possible, we repeated this process on areas as needed until the deck looked mostly stripped of the old red stain. This process only took a couple hours, but our instructions recommend waiting 3 days until staining. We did this only to the deck surface, not the rails or lattice, since we planned to paint over them rather than use stain.

The instructions recommend waiting 3 days before staining. We waited a week since we had rain in between, so we made sure to wait for 3 dry days before staining

Step 3 – Stain the deck floor brown

Once you are ready to stain, I recommend testing samples in an inconspicuous area. The color I first chose ended up being completely off, and I had to go back for additional samples. I ended up choosing Olympic Elite, semi-transparent stain in Dark Oak. The color has a solid brown appearance with no red undertones (I really wanted all traces or red GONE). We used one gallon for this project. Our deck is approx 10×20 feet. I liked that the stain was not runny and was easily applied.

Staining went relatively quickly since we only stained the floor of the deck. Using a stain pad on an extension pole, we applied one THIN coat as evenly as possibly on the deck, moving from one side to the other as smoothly as possible. If you don’t move from one end of the deck to the other in even strokes, you may end up with marks, but we did not notice any even though we were not perfect!

After one coat, I still saw red undertones from the previous stain. The directions on our stain said to wait 24 hours then apply a second coat. We followed these directions for a second coat since there was some of the red showing through after just one coat. The color looked fantastic after a second coat, but the deck felt tacky for about a week. Thankfully it did fully cure, but I was worried initially. I would caution when applying a second coat for this reason.

You can really see the old color versus the new color in the photo above, with the old (red) stain on the railing and lattice and the new (brown) stain on the floor.

Step 4 – Paint the deck railings white

We waited for the deck to fully cure before painting the railings so we could lay plastic without it sticking. Once the deck was covered in plastic we got out rollers and brushes and set to work.

We used Glidden Premium Exterior Paint, in satin, in white. This is a standard outdoor wood paint which we are using on the exterior trim of our house for touch ups, so we decided to use it for the deck so it matched. In retrospect, I probably would have chosen a softer white, though the deck looks fantastic in this white, too!

Painting the railings and lattice took at least 2 full days, with 2 people working on it. It was extremely tedious. You have to paint all sides of every railing, including the insides, undersides, and sides you didn’t even know existed until you start painting. A small brush and/or a small roller of your choice will do the trick (and lots of patience). We used a combination of a brush and roller; I preferred the brush and my husband preferred the roller.

Paint 2-3 thin coats as you go. If you apply too much paint you will splatter it everywhere and have drip marks. Painting with thinner coats goes faster and smoother with less drips and splatters, and looks even when completed.

We decided to paint the sides of the deck white, and only stain the tops of the stair steps brown.

Painting the lattice was the most tedious part of the process, but, the hard work pays off! We did not paint the bottom behind the trees, but we did pull them forward enough to paint the railings.

The Finished Project

The deck now feels so much more cozy and inviting, and no longer do I see an old red deck staring at me through my back windows! 

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