Should you repair or replace your cedar deck?

A weathered wooden deck with white railings and a small gazebo sits outdoors, surrounded by green trees and attached to a beige house. The deck surface shows signs of age and moss.

I (Leif) was recently invited to a home whose multilevel cedar deck looked a lot like the photo above—grey, streaked with mildew and dotted with soft spots. The new owners plan to stay only about five years, so their big question was: “Is it worth sanding and re-staining, or should we tear the boards off […]