never again.

so this past weekend, staining the fence and deck seemed like a good idea.
staining is just like painting, right? yeah maybe...at least what painting must be like in hell!

the deck stain was all worn and splintery, so since that definitely needed done, we just decided to do the fence too while we were at it. sure, why not? one thing i've learned since being a homeowner is that fences are stupid expensive, and we didn't want to have to replace ours anytime soon...even though it's already on the old side. so it's better to just take care of it and squeeze as much life out of it as possible.


i quickly discovered that the difference between staining and painting is that staining requires loooots more wood prep! the first step was stripping. (the wood, not us!) this was like toxic death. we used a chemical instead of a sander, and that stuff was intense! i small splatter flew up and hit my cheek, and burned straight through my skin! fortunately only the deck required stripping since the fence had never been treated... i would have quit right after the deck if the fence had needed it too! the stripping then required scrubbing the old stain off with a rough brush...creating a serious mess!

the next step was just the overall wood prep to kill mildew and get rid of the worn parts of the wood. this required scrubbing both the fence and deck with another chemical.

seriously toxic job. a few brain cells were lost. and my arms are still feeling it.


this pic was taken at about the super low point. crrrrazy rough. we're covered in liquid fence mildewy gunk. some of us more than others...hmmm....

but everything actually looked kind of awesome after this phase. i was half tempted to just call it a day. but then i would have cried in a few months when everything looked funky again.


the wood on the right is how the wood looked all prepped! it's like a miracle! it took years off the fence! (i forgot to take a pic before we started staining though, so just ignore the other part!)

so then we stained. and stained. and stained some more.

but finally...5 days and many sore muscles later, we made it! at least mostly. don't ask me about the neighbor's side that we haven't gotten to yet...i might cry. i'll think about it later when i'm recovered.




i must say that i'm truly happy with the outcome. it's like everything is brand new!
but never again people. never again.
i'm just praying that next time this needs done we'll have fallen into some money and can hire someone to do it. because seriously... i can work hard. i'm a texas girl... but that was rough.

so please admire.
and i'm sorry. i love you... but i won't help you stain yours!