After a couple of months spent working on little fixer-uppers around the house, Dan and I are finally getting to work on the big project: We are refinishing our deck.
I’m not talking about a simply staining a 10-by-10-foot surface, folks. Our deck has more square footage than our last home. That’s 750 feet of outdoor space!
We have been eager to use it all summer, there were a couple of barriers. First of all, it’s been too dang hot to step foot on the fading forest green paint. Which leads me to my second point: The deck put the “ug” in ugly.
At first, Dan tried to scrape off the remaining paint. But, it was a stubborn sucker so we quickly realized that wasn’t going to work. Plan B involved a super, turbo, gas-fueled power washer and the help of Dan’s dad.
It did a much better, quicker job of getting the paint off — even though I think half of it stuck to the guys’ legs.
After that, they replaced a couple of rotted boards.
Then it was time for the fun: Covering up the green paint once and for all.
After a lot of shopping, debating and researching, we decided our best option was Deck Restore, which fills in cracks and acts as “armor” for the deck. Otherwise, we would have had to go with a similar green paint and would have had to repaint next year.
As was the case with every task related to the deck, the painting was pretty time-consuming. We had to work in pairs — Dan’s parents together, Dan and me together — with one person rolling the Restore Armor on with a special brush and the other person back-brushing for an even finish.
Even with just the first coat down, the whole deck feels transformed. The hazardous splinters-waiting-to-happen have been replaced with a sleek finish. The spotted green has been replaced with a solid earth tone that complements our house rather than makes it look like a year-round Christmas decoration.
It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing on many levels.
Once we apply the final coat and set up our patio furniture, I’ll do the final reveal. (Let’s hope that’s soon.)
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