Tried staining my deck with a $7 roller instead of a brush and it looked like a toddler did it

The foam roller left so many bubbles and streaks in the stain that I had to sand the whole thing down and start over with a $4 brush from the hardware store, anyone else have a tool swap that backfired big time?

3 comments

3 Comments

jessica_robinson231mo ago

Oh man, that foam roller disaster sounds absolutely brutal, I feel your pain on having to sand it all down again. Did you at least get to enjoy that satisfying moment of peeling off all the dried stain chunks before starting over? That brush probably saved you more time and frustration than any fancy tool ever could.

joseph_ellis851mo ago

That satisfaction of peeling off the stain chunks is real, I totally get that. It's funny how often the cheap, basic tool ends up being more reliable than the fancy new thing you try. In my experience, most of the time the simple solutions work best, your mileage may vary of course.

mila_harris1mo agoOG Member

Read somewhere that using a cheap foam roller on stain traps air bubbles because the foam is too dense and the stain can't breathe or something like that. I think the guy in the hardware store told me that after I complained about my own mess. Makes sense though, that foam just holds the moisture in instead of letting it spread out even.