When we bought Winding Pathways six years ago we ended up with two old wooden decks and steel deck furniture.

Turkeys in yard

We love our decks and often enjoy meals there.  Sometimes we just sit on our decks watching wildlife in the prairie and woodland. Unfortunately, our decks and furniture were showing their age.

They were made of pressure treated wood. Years of Iowa weather had created many cracks, and in some places the boards were uneven. So we decided to refurbish them.

Decks are challenging surfaces. Sun bakes them, while rain and snow add moisture. Changes in temperature and moisture cause wood planks to swell and shrink.

Staining big deck

Options for upgrading a deck or treating a new one include:

• Leaving the wood bare: This works. There’s no paint to peel. Maintenance includes tightening screws that work loose and occasionally washing the wood. Expect some cracking and discoloration.
• Staining: Stains penetrate wood and resist peeling. Most stains come in a variety of colors and provide some protection to the wood.
• Painting: Unlike stain, paint stays on the wood’s surface rather than penetrating.  Regular exterior paint doesn’t usually last long as swelling and shrinking wood forces it loose. Special deck paint formulations are made by a variety of companies and are durable.
• Replacing with plastic wood. Fake wood sounds silly but many companies make deck material from recycled plastic. It does not absorb water so swelling and shrinkage is minimal. Color is within the plastic. Some types fade, while others don’t. Maintenance is minimal.   They are very long lasting but cost is normally much higher than wood.

Materials for restore the deck.

To fix our deck we bought a Rustoleum product called RESTORE 10X. It is an extremely thick paint designed to fill cracks and low spots. When we applied it in the fall of 2014 it looked great. Then came a tough winter followed by a rainy spring. The new paint peeled in sheets, and we were frustrated.

Priming the deck

Painting small deck

Rustoleum guaranteed the product and replaced it with newly reformulated paint and primer. We applied it in late summer 2015. A year later it looks as good as new. The combination of the new formulation over a special primer seems to have solved peeling problems.

Furniture proved much easier to spiff up.  The original finish had gotten dull and some rust spots were appearing. We washed and scrubbed the surfaces and applied black Rustoleum spray paint. That did the trick with minimal effort!

Now both our deck surfaces and furniture look good as new.

• Our review is an independent, unsolicited, unpaid blog.

Chair looks great with new paint.

Enjoying the deck.