Deck Fun

Last weekend my husband and I began to tackle THE home improvement project that we had successfully postponed for 3 years. Yes, 3, count em', years. The deck was in desperate need of being refinished ever since he bought the place in 2004. Seeing that he has SOOO much extra time working 80+ hours a week and bought it from a previous resident, well you can see how this got prioritized less than well any other house related chore for almost a decade. Don't get me wrong, there were incredible intentions of doing this before now. J had actually bought the supplies to do this project back in 2005 including a rotary sander. (He would like me to state in his defense that he did use the rotary sander at that time to do a few of the railings but lost steam.)

During the time of our long distance courtship when the question would arise as to what did we want to do with our time, the deck came up frequently. However, when one only has 48 hours with loved ones the last thing you want to do is spend it with varnish. We also managed to put it off for the first year of marriage even though it was brought up week after week of potential "fun" for our coveted weekends.

Okey dokey. Its a good thing he married a woman who has delusions of grandeur that she is actually adept in doing home improvement because eventually I actually began to think that the deck project would be a good time. Yes, I think working at Home Depot would be a really fun gig.

The deck was looking "weathered." I say this just to be nice. There were corners of algae green going on due to the humid climate. Our incredible neighbors offered their power washer in lieu of the sander. I actually took them up on it. Holy cow. This power tool is way more fun than a girl should be allowed to have. You just hook up the electricity and the hose (which by the way would generally be a lethal combination so whoever designed this tool obviously had a death wish) and away you go!!! I was out there well past it getting dark and had all the lights and flashlights showing my way. Finally I gave up and came inside feeling exhilarated. My muscles were sore and I was sprayed with algae and mildew particles all over my legs and I felt great!

I got up super early the next day to complete the task. In fact I spent the whole day getting steps 1-3 out of the way. I will say that using the deck brush for hours just reaffirmed my decision of why I decided the Navy was a bad idea. I even found other things to power wash like the outdoor furniture. It was so much fun! The other neighbors began to feel sorry for me out there all day long. One brought me tea from Starbucks, another brought me stuff from the store and a toy for Edgar. Others would just stop by to see the freak show of a woman actually doing manual labor. Apparently its a rarity in these parts. I got comments from guys like, "Gee, could you teach my wife how to do this?" When I returned the power washer I included a thank you note expressing my exuberance and some money for their water bill.

We left all of our pots on the grass giving the deck maximum exposure to dry out for the next few days which totally confused the landscaping staff. I watched them drive around on their mowers this week and then stopped abruptly when they saw the obstacle course created by the pots. Literally, this guy just stopped and stared for a good 5 minutes before abandoning his mower and returning with his boss 25 minutes later for them both to just stare at the pots. It was rather amusing over my morning coffee to watch their stellar problem solving skills of what to do. It took a total of 45 minutes for them to decide, "Gee, we should go AROUND the pots!" Oh. My. Lord.

Today we've got to start staining the now exposed and bleached wood. There is some doubt as to the timing due to the tricky weather forecasters which would explain our hesitancy and procrastination this morning (and this blog entry). There are no power tools to make this go faster. We have brushes, buckets, and hand picked weatherproof stain selected from the rows and rows of choices last night at the Mecca (Home Depot). One could truly have an existential life crisis by deciding if we should go with 500 natural finish or 501 natural cedar finish. Yup, my husband and I know how to have a rowdy Friday night date: selecting deck stain! Oh, have we truly reached that new low of dating while married? In all fairness, we did follow it up with hamburgers (yummy) and a movie at home.

My only regret was not taking before and after photos. :)