As long as the moisture content is good, you are okay to seal. That all depends upon the lumber you are using (air dried or kiln dried and to what moisture content.. KD15 would be Kiln dried 15%) Your moisture should be at 15 or lower. Cabots makes a semi transparent oil that comes in a ton of colors. I use Seacoast Gray for the effect you are talking about. It needs to be redone soon, but you get the idea. Here is a pic of our place at the beach where we have to use gray to meet committee requirements. PS: available for rent in Ocean City NJ if anyone is interested.

Reed is right. I would come in at about $900 dollars to do your deck (if it has rails on three sides and three or less steps). If you do it yourself and you mess up the prep (likely for a newbie) You will be right back out there in the spring spraying and scrubbbing and overapplying sealer on top of mold only to have it fail by summer's end again. If properly maintained your deck could last 20 years+. I've seen people save nickels using bleach cleaners and using subpar sealers. Stripper is going to cost you $100.. Pre mixed acidic brightener will be another $25..Five gallons of quality sealer will set you back $225. Renting a pressure washer (which you need to strip albeit using a nozzzle to take your pressure way down) will cost you another $125 for two days. Newbie on a deck that size prepare for two 8 hour days in the sun stripping and brightening. Another 2 or three days sealing it. So now you have $475, at least four full days and you still have no guarantee of results. Ooops did you forget to mask properly? You have three dead plants, brown grass and sealer bonded to your nice siding. Hopefully looking at this will change your mentality. You can't afford NOT to hire a professional.

Jim, I just cant see you diging up really old posts, going on and on about it, with out some type of goal. Exactley what are you trying to prove??? Go to my site, All the ipe projects have 116 on them. As you can see they are not Red or Redwood or anything close to that. Saying it is makes me Mad clear and simple. Now if you put 116 on say preasure treated,garapa or any light color wood then Yes its going to come out a different color than 116 on ipe. This is basic 101 wood finish. Any of the resin base twp products can be mixed together to come up with a different color. I have used combos like that when puting finish on Garapa and other woods. I put cedar tone natural on ipe one time because the Wallet asked for it the result was bad but I did what they wanted however for ipe its most always the 116. Ipe itself is not one color it ranges from almost black to a light tan 116 levals out the differances but the result is not Red. Any color chip you get from Any finish store is going to be different on another kind of wood other than the wood used on the chip you cant expect them to have samples of finish on every kind of product. Just get off it Man. Its up to the Customer to know if one finish is the right one for them. There is no way twp is showing product online / samples / or color chips that dont match up with what they sell. You might not agree with what they call it if so just pick another name for your self and call it that but it Defentley is what they say it is and what they say they sell is what they sell. The JonMon has been a little tense latley after a long term project was real hard on me. This is a mixed site if I could I would edit my last response but O Well. J.

OK, finally took some pics of the stringer and transition to baseboard in hall at top of stairs - think this will work? Lovely gap - over 1" from wall to edge of stringer Colonial "stop" molding (not thick enough so have to lay flat instead of laying it against wall - my cousin was going to finish off the end with a mitred return, just tape holding it right now) But that still leaves the problem of transitioning to the thinner, lower baseboard, and a gap b/t the stringer and the wall So I'm thinking of running the stop molding vertically as well - he'll just have to figure out the angle to join the 2 pieces of stop (and of course cut the baseboard so it fits snugly against it). Either that, or just do the mitred return and then put a block in between like crazyhouse6 did? Which do you think will look better? I want to run the stop vertically at the bottom of the stringer too, to hide the end grain and cover the awkward chipped corner bead on the drywall where it meets the stringer just to the side of the newels (and not do the molding where DH is holding it here, just run the oak board to "box" in the bottom of the newel higher than the stringer), so would it be best to do the same treatment top and bottom? Sorry, I can get DH to hold the newel and take some better pics of the bottom tonight while I hold the stop over the end grain.