First Time

I'm a first time homer owner (St. Louis, MO) and am halfway through restoring the deck on my house.  The deck is 14'x13' and sits about 9' tall (floor is about 6' railing 9').  When I bought the house the railings were in okay shape but the floor and steps were in rough shape.  I ended up having some trial and error issues using the RAD solid stripper but eventually got it all cleaned off using 6.5 gallons of stripper (original est I used was 3 gallons) and a pressure washer.  This process has lasted 4 days of 2.5 hours of application, wait 2-3 hours, then 2.5 hours of washing spread out over 4 weekends.  This month long process was mostly due to me having to reorder stripper multiple times as I kept running out and only ever got 1 day a weekend in.  I'm planning on using the brightener tomorrow and applying a solid stain (RAD Brown Oak) next weekend.  After such a huge underestimation on the stripper I'm not sure how much I'll need to buy for two coats. Any input on how much to buy so I can get it all done at once would be very welcome.

 I feel like 10 hours of applying and 10 hours of washing plus the sit time is probably excessive and would love any feedback on how to make things go faster next time.  I ended up applying the stripper mainly by brush as I found using a roller was very troublesome and was difficult in getting it thick enough to have an effect on small surfaces like the banisters and vertical rails/legs.  The floor and stairs were rolled on but still took 3 hours to apply and 4 hours to remove as some parts were not easy even after 3+ hours of waiting.