One-Year-Old Cedar Deck Gets Its First Stain in Vaughan

The deck: one year old and already turning

This big cedar deck in Vaughan was built the summer before, with frameless glass railings and a long run of boards along the back of the house. It had never been stained. After one year outside the cedar had started to do what unfinished cedar does: the sunny half was fading to grey, the shaded half was holding dark water marks, and the two halves no longer matched. Nothing was damaged. The owners simply wanted to protect it before the second winter and get the warm colour back while it was still easy to get.

Why a new deck still needs sanding

Homeowners are often surprised that a one-year-old deck gets sanded before its first stain. There are two reasons. The first is the grey: even after a single season the surface fibres have been broken down by UV, and stain applied over them bonds to dead wood and wears off early. The second is mill glaze, the hard, shiny surface that new cedar comes with from the lumber yard and that stops stain from soaking in. A light, even sand removes both. The during photo shows the result — clean, pale, uniform cedar with the grey and the water marks gone and the grain open. It is far less work than sanding an old deck, which is the whole point of doing it now rather than in five years.

Staining around glass railings

Frameless glass railings are the easiest kind to stain around: no balusters, no posts to cut in, just a row of base clamps along the edge. We masked the clamps and the glass, stained the floor and fascia in a warm honey-cedar tone with a penetrating product that soaks into the wood rather than filming on top, and cleaned the glass afterwards. The after photo shows the deck in full sun: one even colour from the house wall to the edge, grain and knots visible, and the glass giving the view back to the yard and the willow.

The result

A new deck that now looks the way it did the week it was built, and will keep looking that way with a wash and a maintenance coat every few years instead of a full sand later. This is the cheapest a deck staining job ever gets: catch the wood before it weathers.

Staining new decks in Vaughan, Woodbridge and Maple

UCO Construction Group stains new and recently built decks, as well as restoring old ones, across Vaughan, Woodbridge, Maple, Kleinburg, Richmond Hill and the rest of the GTA. If you built or bought a home with an unfinished cedar or pressure-treated deck, see our deck staining service and get in touch for a free on-site estimate — the best time to stain a new deck is before it needs restoring.