[tommer12]

Hello. I was wondering if anyone could help me out. I just finished stripping, sanding, and staining my neighbors deck last week and I have no idea what would be a fair price to charge her. It is approx. a 500 sqft deck, however it has 2 railing sections with spindles and also a very large trellis that overhangs approx half the deck with very large boards. The deck also has steps on either end of the deck with 2 steps on each side that are quite wide and it also has a large built in bench with no back or arm rests.
I began this project with a stain stripping agent from Behr and found it did not work at all. It only seemed to loosen the top coat of the stain and did not come close to fully stripping the stain off as advertised. I followed the instructions on the back of the jug to the letter (apply liberally and let sit for 5-35 minutes, use a stiff bristle brush once it has been applied to loosen the stain and once it has set long enough, remove with water from your everyday garden hose and do not use a pressure washer or high pressure to remove). This took me approx 15 hours to apply and remove from the deck.
I then began sanding the entire deck once I had coated the deck once and removed the stripping agent. I used 40 and 60 grit sanding paper with a 4-1/2 inch orbital sander and a belt sander with the same grit for the floor boards. This took me quite a long time as I was not only removing the dark burgundy stain on top but also a golden brown stain that I found was underneath the top coat. I spent a considerable amount of time sanding the deck since it was just me doing all of the work and the trellis required me being up on a ladder using the orbital sander and then hand sanding the stain off in the nooks and crannies by hand with a folded piece of sand paper. I spent approx 80 hours sanding this deck to where it could be stained.
Once the sanding was done I used Behr's prep agent that is mixed 1:1 with water and rolled on every surface of the deck to remove the stripping agent 100% and also to remove any discoloration that there mite be due to weathering or mould. This took me 8 hours to apply.
After the prep agent went on I allowed the deck to dry for 24 hours and then the next day I applied my first coat of stain to the deck using a brush for the banisters and nooks and a roller for the large flat surfaces. This took me 10 hours to get a good solid first coat on. The next day I went over and noticed that the stripping agent I first applied to the deck had removed some of the burgundy stain between the floor boards, and caused what was left to flake and peel. So before I could apply the second coat of stain I had to first sand between the cracks of the floor boards to remove any peeling and then when I was applying the second coat I needed to stuff a paint brush between the cracks to get some stain on the edges of the boards. As a result the second coat took me just as long to apply as the first (another 10 hours).
All of the materials she is paying for and I kept my receipts for those and she will reimburse me for those. The deck from start to finish took me a little over a month. I was sick for a week in there and a few days were rained out.
I have a good relationship with my neighbor and she told me that the deck looks great and she is very pleased with how it turned out. Any help on figuring out a fair cost would be much appreciated! Thanks!