Are you sure the "Water Seal" you refer to is an oil based (requiring a petrochemical to clean the brushes and NOT soap and water)? Is it "transparent" and has no color listed or shown on the can? There is no need to "strip" or "sand" the Thompson's Oil based TRANSPARENT Water seal Product because the paraffin soaks into the wood and is not on the surface. It has no pigments in it that rest on top of the wood. Therefore there should be no "peeling" or "chipping" of the surface and no obvious wear other than wear to the wood itself, usually near stairs and door and very slight in most instances. If its the Thompson Oil Based Transparent product you used, there is no need to strip or sand. You may want to clean the surface (IF it is visibly in need of it) with something like diluted Clorox Exterior house cleaner to remove pollen, dust, dirt and any surface mildew (mildew spores are transported by the wind and there is always some on the surface, although it probably hasn't "stuck" to it. Its basically a spray or brush on job and rinse with a garden hose. Let it dry fully for at least a day (two is better). then you can apply your new oil based deck product. I suggest you wait at least one full year for the beading of water to stop and even two years is OK. My front deck got the Thompson's two years ago and I will stain it with an oil based stain this year. It requires minimal cleaning....I may just use a garden hose with a firemen's nozzle. The deck gets full sun all morning so mildew is very hard pressed to survive there. Best stain, IMO are oil based TWP. The main thing to watch for is to avoid "soap and water cleanup" because that is a water based, possibly latex deck product. You wouldn't think to put latex paint on your indoor hardwood. Latex wears like crap to foot traffic. A true stain soaks the color deep into the wood and is not a "paint pigment" that sits on top of the wood. The whole problem with deck preservation has been caused by the VOC controversy which tossed a lot of good products out of the market by legislation. The emphasis on water based products opened the door for a lot of "new" water products with "paint stains" which are not stains at all. Unfortunately, those products require stripping because they wear out fast, leaving some areas bare and have adhesion problems as they age. Stripping is more work than the refinishing. ALWAYS google the Material Safety Data Sheet of the product you are considering so you know exactly what it is. Be careful that most big box stores sales clerks are "selling" what the store has in stock. That is why they get paid. The best products used by Contractors are available through building supply vendors that cater to builders and carpenters and not the general public consumer. They do not refuse to sell to the general public, but "quality" is their life blood, not quantity of sales based on huge purchasing contracts supplying a nationwide chain. Wish you good luck. Don't be swayed by the claims of 6 year and 10 year lifespans. If its a water based paint pigment product, it will look like hell for half of those claimed "lifespans", Most people would prefer a true stain that can be reapplied easily without having to strip the deck. And. if you have to strip the deck, how do you strip the railings and balusters? I've done it....took a pressure washer and two days to complete. Then I started reading and wised up on the number of really crummy products that are available, being pushed by big box stores and consumer agencies that prioritize water based over oil because of an "environmental" bias. The idea behind using an initial Thompson's Oil Based Transparent on a new deck comes from a highly ethical, lifelong contractor/carpenter who needed a workable solution for customers who couldn't decide how they wanted there decks treated during an age of great confusion. The Thompson Transparent has an effective anti-fungal and gives good service up to two years. When you compare to other oil based products costing three times as much, many of them also recommend restaining after two years. BTW, oil based paraffin products do not support fungus.

Kismet that was a great link - I saved it! When my husband and I were thinking about doing the stairs we orignally were going to just re-stain the wood (like in the blog link) but with all the work involved we figured it might be worth it to just change out the spindles as well since we love the iron look (and i think it would match better with my style of decorating)... Nanny we saw the spindles at Lowes and last time I did the math it was around $500 in supplies - which if we DIY we thought wasn't too bad...I'm afraid a contractor will charge triple... Nanny do you mind showing me a picture of what you did. How was it getting the spindles into place on the handrail? Did you have to buy the angled pieces for the bottoms? Or did the spindles go directly onto your stairs? I think we are both more afraid of the staining - we tried staining one of our bathroom cabinets and it was a horror! We ended up just painting it! The posts and handrails seem much more intricate to sand and stain than the cabinet we managed to screw up! Thank you both for your responses!

I'd carefully restain the stair treads. Know that where there is already/still stain, it'll darken some so wipe that part off immediately. Any rejuvenation product is going to effect the actual color of the wood that isn't stained already. You'll just make that another, different color. So stain them, but wipe the undamaged area first and right away. Let it dry completely before you decide if that area needs a 2nd treatment. Oh, shoot. What did the installer use as a sealer? Because that'll determine if the stain actually changes the OK area. I admit I'm sorry you paid the guy before he took the steps you're taking. It should have been 1) no charge, 2) a no-brainer and 3) a problem a pro wouldn't have created for himself. Someone will probably jump in with better suggestions.

I much prefer the look of painted risers. I have found that scuff marks seem to depend a lot on the kind of paint you use. In our last house, we pulled up carpet and painted the risers with a latex semi-gloss paint. They scuffed horribly and I was constantly repainting them (because they scuffed so bad I couldn't get them clean). In this house, which was painted with Ben Moore OIL based semi-gloss, the stair risers hardly ever scuff. Same people, same shoes -- only difference is the paint. Now, we can no longer get oil paint in our state and our stair area really needs repainted (the walls are wood paneled and painted in the same paint as the risers) so I started putting Zinsser 123 over the oil paint in preparation for repainting it with latex. I got interrupted, so only a few steps have the 123. They too are scuffing horribly. They're only primer, so I wouldn't expect it to hold up, but still - it's amazing the difference between scuff level after just a few days. I'm planning to repaint with Cabinet Coat by Insul-X, which is the toughest latex trim paint I have found. It has held up well on my baseboards so I'm hoping it will be good on the risers. If not, I guess I could make an out-of-state trip to smuggle in some oil paint, LOL!