Hello BetteBee! Now let me say I've never tried this but a friend told me about it years ago! I'm sure someone out there has tried it and may be able to tell if it works! He took a pressure washer that could be ajusted to different pressure and lightly blasted the wood and it looked like it was brand new, then he let it dry and took a wood treatment like Thompsons and coated it. Now you can't stay to long at one spot when U'r blasting cause it will really knock off the area! He said it had to be treated ever few years tho! Now I'd go to the back side of the house and do a sample area and see if it got the results that I wanted! Hope this helps!
Largely depends on the coating that is on there now. If it was semi-transparent stain, then a treatment of bleach/water (1:5) solution, let stand 15-20 minutes and rinse off should lighten the dark color (likely it is mold or mildew that makes it dark).
If the coating was a redwood 'paint', then the pressure washer treatment may carefully remove much of the 'paint'. A picture would help here. Often this type of coating is hard to deal with, as some of it sticks pretty tight, and won't come off, whereas other areas it just flakes off and exposes bare wood.
Suggestion to re-stain with only a semi-transparent stain with mildewcide in it.
I want to thank you guys! We are doing what you both suggested in a fashion.
We are having the old stain removed. And going with semi-transparent. Now it is the shade of color in the stain that we have to decide on, so it looks like cedar. We do not want red cedar. We bought one quart of one shade to try on today. If we do not think it is the right shade we will go get another quart...smile ...till we get a good shade.
God Bless!
This is the first time I used this CountryBy Net Forum. It seems very wonderful!
God Bless!
Betty in Florida