I hate painted decks. Period paragraph. How did the paint "ruin" the wood? I can't find a Behr product called "Renew". Synta/Rustoleum makes "Restore", Behr makes "DeckOver" - was it one of those 2 products? Can you walk from one area to the other directly, ie the paint will have a line where it changes color? That would be jarring, but if you're not worrying about selling before having to do it over, if it doesn't bother you, go for it. If you're rebuilding anyway, why not roof that section over as well? Thus making the entire porch uniform and consistent and solving your long-term problems with repeated sun damage. It also now becomes a porch instead of a deck so painting the wood isn't quite the problem it is for a deck. Otherwise - this is new construction - I always and only use transparent water repellant for exposed deckwork. You should apply that first even if you want to paint anyway - I just stop right there, then there is never peeling ugly paint that has to be scraped off, scraped up, wire-brushed, and sanded away before you can do anything else with the deck.

So how weird will this be? We have a wrap around porch. The front and side are covered and we have it painted. It has been 10 years and needs to be redone. The roof makes it hold up pretty well. The back part of our porch gets full sun and is not covered. We have had to redo that part many times. We used some of that Behr renew paint on just the back portion 2 years ago and it ruined all of that wood. So my husband is going to replace all the back partl. It is all pressure treated wood. . So... we want to definitly stain the back. But removing all the paint (on the section that is painted) on a pressure treated deck is very difficult. I tried stripping it and it will take me forever. I'm not so keen on sanding as it is pressure treated. So would it look ok if I painted the front and side with a bluish grey porch floor paint and then when it gets to the back section transition it to a brown stain? I like the two colors next to each other but I am nervous that it would look awkward. I don't like the idea of a colored stain as I think it will show all the chipping much quicker. I was thinking of using penofin for pressure treated wood as it penetrates wood well and therefore does not show as much when it starts to fade. Thoughts?

It usually looks bad anyway--even when done right. Your examples don't look very convincing, either, to be honest. I don't think they look any better than what you got. The photos at the top above work more because they look like ceiling beams, or rafters, or whatevers. What you have is a big ol header. I'd case it out to match the nice built-ins you have that it is actually touching instead of bringing in a random element.

I am installing treated pine deck boards on our covered porch, columns (for railings) wrapped in cedar. and tongue and groove (I assume non-treated) as my porch ceiling. I know they won't look exact, but any suggestions on a semi-transparent stain that will tie them all together? Research tells me Penofin, Readyseal and TWP are good options. Any real world experience?