Staining Our DIY Wood Platform Deck

I’m so excited to share that our DIY platform deck is officially done, and just in time for the summer 2022 season! If you remember, my dad, John, and I spent a couple of days last fall building our own raised floating deck, and since that time we’ve been letting the treated lumber air out in preparation for its final stain treatment. Fast forward 30-some weeks, and that step is now finally complete, and I can share the finished deck with all of you today.

Click back here if you want a thorough recap of the build process. That post details how we dismantled our old, rotten shed that we inherited from the previous homeowners, and how we planned and permitted for a brand new handmade deck. Our goal was to turn an underutilized space in our small backyard into something that we could actually use, and I’m happy to report that it has been in regular use ever since we completed the build—even before we finished the new stain treatment!

In case you didn’t know, one important step in building a deck from treated lumber is that you have to give the wood a good bit of time to dry out after construction. There’s something about the treatment process that requires a wait time between that first building phase and when you can stain the wood boards, so we gave the deck plenty of time to dry out post-construction. We left those blonde-colored boards alone for as long as we could stand, but I don’t mind admitting that we were pretty anxious to get a coat of dark brown stain on the wood grain. Our un-stained deck stuck out like a sore thumb for the seven months that we let the wood dry out, but come April of this year, we were finally ready to complete that last lingering step.

Color, of course, was our main focus in the time leading up to staining. I don’t generally overthink color. I’m a spontaneous (and impatient) person by nature, so I never planned on spending hours in the stain aisle to choose a color for our deck. Luckily, I just happened to spot a post on one of my favorite designer’s Instagram feeds about staining deck boards, and I loved the color he chose. I have 100 percent confidence in Dabito’s color instincts in general, and was actually really drawn to the specific medium-toned stain he chose for his outdoor fence, so I went ahead and placed my order for the same color stain for our outdoor deck.

Fast forward one week, and we had our gallon of Chocolate Transparent Waterproofing Exterior Wood Finish stain in hand, ready to coat our deck once and for all. In case you didn’t hear, I’ve been suffering from chronic wrist pain that seems to be most painful during painting and gardening projects. For that reason, my mom graciously offered her strong joints to take over, and she stained our entire deck for us by herself in the course of an hour or two one Tuesday morning last month.

Based on her review, I can relay that the stain was really easy to work with, and I can also attest to the amazing results (that you see pictured here in today’s post). She did a combination of rolling and brushing to coat the bare treated wood boards in one coat of stain to help protect them for the rainy spring/summer season ahead. Doesn’t it look great?!

I love how the warmer, darker stain makes the deck feel like more of a natural extension of our red brick ranch home. Now it looks less like an addition, and more like an intentional outdoor living space. If we didn’t know any better, we’d almost assume that it had been here since the 1960s when the house was originally built!

Truth be told, we haven’t spent a ton of time on our back deck yet, but I blame that on a combination of unseasonably chilly weather for May, and also a lack of privacy from our neighbors. We are still waiting on our black chain-link fence, but I think once that’s installed in the next week or two we’ll feel much more confident about being lazy on our newly stained DIY floating deck. More updates to come, so stay tuned!