This post is pretty much for my own satisfaction. When we bought our house, the deck needed to be stained. We opted for Thompsons water seal. We sprayed it on and it lasted for about 3 months. I wouldn't recommend that stuff if I was paid to. So our deck has looked like the before pictures for the past 18 months or so. The other day I had the itch to do something about it, and bought some real stain and paint brushes. Spence and I painted it that afternoon in about 4 hours. I think it turned out pretty good. There are some places that are a little bit orange because we got too much stain there, or it dripped, but all in all it looks WAY better than before.

BEFORE.....

and AFTER!