Scraping by.

Nothing like scraping the paint off the deck to give a guy some humility. Unless you're an old hand and quite experienced, it's a job that is guaranteed to take longer and be more involved than you estimate it will. Why do we underestimate it so? Lots of discounting and eagerness. 

Discounting: The old paint is in such lousy condition it's virtually falling off on its own. I'll just go out there with my scraper and give it a little nudge, and in ten minutes, bare wood. 

Eagerness: It's gonna look so awesome when it's got that fresh paint on it---and painting isn't so hard! I love to paint!

The truth is, the old stuff will come off in patches, but other parts will stick on with the tenacity of a desperate, over-the-hill senator. Worse, though, are the areas that look like they're pretty well set until juuuust about the time you've finished the scraping... and then they want to come off and play.

Gah!

I hate paint removal. Oh, sure, you feel like a million bucks for five seconds when you peel off a big piece of the old flesh; it's like whipping off the shirt before you jump in the pool. Whooooee! But then you're back to scrape... scrape... are you coming off or can I paint over you? I can pain--- Okay, okay, scraping... scrape... scrape...

Made the mistake of going after it with the scraper first and the power washer last. The power washer is not that strong. Mine is a plug-in type, not gas-powered, which makes it more of a power-assist washer. But it's great, because you still feel like a Ghostbuster when you wield that big gun and fire a stream at the enemy.

I ain't afraid of no paint.

I figured I would loosen some more old stain, but I loosened a frigging whale of a lot more old stain. It flew everywhere, leaving little poison potato chips on the lawn for the dog.

But not all of it came off. Aaaaand you know what that means.

Scrape... scrape... scrape...