Stain or paint?
I'm working on a deck that originally used Behr solid color waterproofing stain and sealer, but I don't think the company that painted it even put two coats let alone primer so 60 to 70% of it came off with a pressure washer and a little bit of scraping. The homeowner installed a section of bare wood and his idea is to transition to an oil-based stain for everything. He wants me to stain the new wood and then put a coat of stain over the painted sections as well. I did a sample which is the second photo and you can see it looks awful. The homeowner doesn't want to repaint because he thinks it's going to look like crap again in a few years but I think it will look 10 times worse with a coat of stain over everything. I was thinking of using an oil-based primer and then repainting. This way I would expect the paint to hold up longer than the previous job. Any thoughts? The homeowner is extremely particular so I'm hoping maybe with some extra advice we can steer him away from stain. But if we do stain everything and then realize it looks terrible, can I go back over the oil-stain with an oil based primer? I assume that's a possibility but I've never primed over oil based stain before. Thanks!