clg - That's the one place online I found that had the double rounded first step in cumaru! I'm worried about the matching of the wood, and the quality. I didn't see any online reviews of the company. Do you (or anyone) have any experience with them? Mairin - Funny - I've been following your progress (and lusting after your potential countertops!) as we seem to have a similar style. I can't wait to see your pictures! Please share when you can! We considered iron balusters too, but a stairman mentioned that our stair area is rather small and they may not look good there. That lead us to wood. Raehelen - wow - your registers look great! You'd never know it's not the same wood. My concern is that the step is 5" wide so if it's a little off, there's a lot of space to notice it. (And I'm not sure if my floor guy is as good as yours!) We've already contracted for all wood stairs, including risers, the "catch" is it was presented as "in your choice of any wood we carry". We didn't realize they didn't carry the steps we need in all the flooring woods. We could try and take the stairs out of the contract price, but I really have the same issue either way. Even if I order the stair parts on line myself, and have someone else install (I'm a diy'er, but more on the painting level!) I'm still unsure the floor would match the stairs. My biggest issue is the first step. This step is right inside the front door - literally 6 feet from the door, so it's really visible. There are railings in both the kitchen and the stairway that need to match, but I am a little more comfortable trying to stain a different wood to match those. Has anyone done all wood steps in a different wood and tried to match the stain?

We have a new deck made with Procell decking and railings made with aluminum balusters and mahogany rails. Actually, it's one of the close cousins of mahogany, meranti or cambera or something. The fresh wood was gorgeous, a pinky-brown color. Based on recommendations from neighbors and the carpenter we decided to use the Cabot ATO. I didn't like the mahogany flame one neighbor used on his mahogany deck because it was very dark, so based on the color samples in the Cabot's brochure I picked the honey teak. The result, with one coat, is still quite dark. I don't think it looks bad but my spouse was just heartsick over it. The carpenter made a small shed door out of the same material and, in an effort to keep it lighter, I bought the Cabot ATO in natural. It's still quite dark. In fact, I think that the differences between the Cabot colors are actually pretty minimal, much closer together than the brochure color samples would lead you to believe. All are darker than I like. I realize that there's not much that will stand up to weather and be colorless and transparent, but if I had it to do again I probably wouldn't choose the Cabot ATO.

Why do you think they have a squadron of sailors constantly scrubbing down the mahogany decks of the old ships? No maintenance doesn't exist. Even stainless steel needs the salt cleaned off of it. You can leave off the varnish and let the wood gray naturally. It won't rot. That's why it was used in the first place. The varnish is merely cosmetic. It will still require periodic cleaning though for the longest life. Or, you can give up the ocean life with all of it's expensive issues like worrying about hurricanes, flood insurance, and mahogany maintenance, and move to a condo some place well inland. There won't be any exterior maintenance with that for you, you'll just be paying for that every month in the condo fees.

If they used the right fasteners water will not hurt anything. As wood filler goes, or even caulk for that matter they don't work well on decks. Like your contractor said wood filler does not “stain” well to match the deck finish. In addition the major issue with using wood filler on decks or wood outdoors is stability...Color matching fillers they're not stable and they always end up cracking or breaking out of the voids, especially when you have 4 season climate changes, and during winter they freeze and thaw and fail quick.