Monday, August 15, 2011

The Tiny Deck that Could Not

You've seen flashes and glimpses of the deck so far, 



but never had a chance to truly behold the wobbly, mildew-y, and cracked gloriousness that it is. 

I would like to point out that this is an old picture, the siding is now perfect. And alluring.


I should take a picture of what lurks beneath it-- basically piles of stuff the previous owners didn't remove or forgot about. Like that red bin thing on the left and a bouncy ball.

Those aren't shadows on the wood, that's like black stuff. Mildew? A coworker in the deck section told me a pressure washer gets all that off. 

Some of it is splitting and bowed. 

And, it's got a random stained section that's orange. I have no clue why they only did a corner??

Plainly it's a hot mess! It's not very big either, only 120 sq. ft. But it's large enough for us and it's still rock sturdy so nothing major needs to be done. I think a small grill and a small table and chairs would fit just fine!... And a hot tub. Ha! 

I'm not sure when we'll tackle it, hopefully before it gets cold. I want it to look like this though:

This is a picture of the picture in the Cabot Deck Staining ad found in the Lowe's paint aisle. 

I get bored at work sometimes, so I snagged some deck booklets from the paint section to gaze at between customers. This Cabot ad really stuck with me since our house is gray/blue too! Plus I've always been a fan of dark mahogany. Mahogany would be way too dark for our floors inside but it's perfect for outside. This picture will be my inspiration :) 

I've seen another similar stain/paint combo on pinterest too:



Too bad our deck rails are the rail over posts form and not the rails under posts.... meaning that our hand rails go OVER our posts, so we don't need the fancy white pillars and top bejazzles (for lack of a better term) that the inspiration used. Maybe I could wing it somehow still. 

Paint skillz to the rescue! Can you envision it?

I like this idea a lot, and Rob did too! Now lets just hope we close on Wednesday! Ahh, nerves!! 

Has anyone else redone their deck? Any advice, warnings, opinions? I'm all ears! 




3 comments:

  1. We scrubbed and re-stained our deck a few years ago ... followed these instructions from This Old House:
    http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/how-to/intro/0,,1608991,00.html

    I was lazy and didn't sand / pressure wash off every last bit of the old stain and we had some issues with the top layer of stain not soaking in because of it and peeling instead ... so it needs to be re-done again. Lesson learned - I'm not going to be so afraid of the pressure washer this time!

    PS - I like the white rails and stained deck boards look a lot!

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  2. Are you replacing it or cleaning it up? If you are replacing, we used Ultradeck. It's a material that you don't have to stain...which means easy up keep. It's more a little more expensive but worth it in the long run!

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  3. That random stain could be a bleached area? I can't see it properly, so you will know, but judging only from the pic, it looks like an attempt at cleaning.

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