Bought a $90 'universal' deck stain that turned my wood purple

I was trying to save cash on my back deck project and grabbed a can of 'all wood' stain from the hardware store. It went on okay but after two days in the sun, my nice pressure-treated pine now looks like a grape popsicle. What's a good, affordable stain brand that actually works as advertised?

4 comments

4 Comments

max_brown2mo ago

My buddy had that exact thing happen with a "bargain" stain last summer. His fence looked like it belonged in a cartoon for a solid month. He ended up using Behr from Home Depot the second time and it actually looked like wood.

logan_wells2mo ago

Oh man, that cartoon fence thing is SO real. My deck turned this insane purple color from a cheap stain, it was like a bad grape juice spill. Had to power wash the whole mess off and start over. Learned the hard way that a few extra bucks for decent stain saves a ton of headache later.

taraross1mo ago

What if you just need a second coat like @logan_wells said, but with a different color?

the_max2mo ago

That Behr stain my neighbor used faded to a weird pink after one season. Sometimes the cheap stuff just needs a second coat to even out.