I have both stained and painted my deck and the key to it lasting on either of them is prep of your deck. First check out the condition of the deck, does it have any rotted boards that need replacing? Are any of the screws/nails raised from the wood? If either of these issues exist now is the time to fix them. Then clean the deck. I power washed mine, let it dry completely and rechecked for any missed old finish and cleaned again if necessary. Either way you decide to proceed (stain/varnish/paint) the deck will need to be completely clean and dry before you proceed. The first time I redid my deck I spray painted the stain/varnish. Covered the deck well but also the side of my house. I had put up plastic and cardboard on the house to prevent the overspray from getting on the house but I must be a messy sprayer because I still had it and it is a bear to clean off siding. The next time I rolled the paint on. No overspray but difficult to get into the cracks between the floor boards.
So both ways have their pros and cons and both actually took about the same time to complete. Spray finishing the deck actually lasted longer though so that would be my recommendation.
As we all know New England is getting hammered with snow this year! And I had so much snow on the deck that I had to use the snowblower to get it off. I'm anticipatin...
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I would always prefer to stain my deck, but here is some info to help you.
https://youtu.be/JTKJH44t5wc
there is a long list of things to consider most depends on the condition of the deck and what is on it. you may have to strip ,sand,to start.
I have both stained and painted my deck and the key to it lasting on either of them is prep of your deck. First check out the condition of the deck, does it have any rotted boards that need replacing? Are any of the screws/nails raised from the wood? If either of these issues exist now is the time to fix them. Then clean the deck. I power washed mine, let it dry completely and rechecked for any missed old finish and cleaned again if necessary. Either way you decide to proceed (stain/varnish/paint) the deck will need to be completely clean and dry before you proceed. The first time I redid my deck I spray painted the stain/varnish. Covered the deck well but also the side of my house. I had put up plastic and cardboard on the house to prevent the overspray from getting on the house but I must be a messy sprayer because I still had it and it is a bear to clean off siding. The next time I rolled the paint on. No overspray but difficult to get into the cracks between the floor boards.
So both ways have their pros and cons and both actually took about the same time to complete. Spray finishing the deck actually lasted longer though so that would be my recommendation.
Prep the deck and then paint with a good quality porch & deck paint. They also sell deck repair paint that will hide a lot of problems.
Prepping is key. Sherwin-Williams makes a great deck paint.