Since moving into a house with a deck attached about 5 years ago, I have stripped and stained the deck floor and steps twice with a semi-transparent (although it ends up looking almost-solid) water-based deck stain.
I have never stripped or stained the wood balusters on the deck railing, which are stained using the same kind and color.
I am planning on tackling re-staining the whole deck this spring, and was looking for some advice regarding the railings. On a previous attempt, I struggled with stain stripper removing the stain from the balusters. They are still in pretty good shape (not peeling, still mostly uniform color), so I was wondering if it would be alright to stain over the existing stain for the railing?
I am still planning to strip and stain the deck floor and steps, and mainly wondering if it'd be alright for the railing since they don't get as abused as the deck floor during daily use.
You should strip the railings as well if you are applying a different brand of stain over what you have on them currently.
The previous owners left a gallon of the stain that they had used on the deck before we bought the house, so we just continued buying the same stain.
Since it's the same stain, would we be OK with just prepping by cleaning and making sure that there aren't any areas that it is peeling (if there any, it is not very prevalent)?
Yes, that is okay.