Retaining the original color of a hardwood deck extremely difficult

Q. We recently put in a large mahogany deck (about two monthsago). The builder applied three coats of Thompson's water seal, andit is now starting to gray in places and fade. Please let us know howto restore the nice red color and then what to do for routinemaintenance.

A. Unfortunately, you put wax on your deck, which is just aboutthe worst thing you could do. Technically, once wax is placed on ahardwood, it never leaves completely. You have a very hard wood deck.As you are now aware, all hardwoods gray very rapidly. It isextremely difficult to retain the original color of a hardwood deck.On top of that, many of the imported hardwoods are so dense they donot accept stain …