My blue deck

 

First I need to convey the acreage that is our back deck.  Oh it seems all nice and intimate and a normal size until you have to sand and stain it.  Then it gets humongous.

Here's Belle, supervising the project.  I tried to convince Rick that the managerial role was mine but, yeah, that didn't pan out.  So Belle's in charge.

 

The above shot is from the back corner – what little glimpse of the house you see is the dining room (where I am right now!).  The deck is 1200 sf if I haven't mentioned that eighty-seven times already.  Our last house was 1140 sf. 

So this is before sanding.  The picture below gives you an idea of how far-reaching that 1200sf deck is.  There is a big, main area on the left where we normally have our big outdoor table.  In front of the big picture windows is a six foot wide area that connects the main deck to the deck outside our bedroom.  And there is Belle, supervising.

 

I'm supposed to mention that we are planning on painting the house.  We're thinking a grey/taupe color with creamy white trim.  Right now it's tan with darker tan trim. 

 

Here it is all sanded.  I freely admit that Rick did all the sanding.   I acted as errand girl and made lunch and went out for more sand paper. 

Is this boring?  This is probably only interesting to me.  Rick would be interested but he's passed out from all the sanding he had to do.

 

Look at that pretty wood.  This deck is at least 20 years old.  Maybe older.  It's held up pretty well.  We haven't done anything to it in the 7 years we've lived here. 

You can see some discoloration in the pictures above.  There are just dark spots that will not sand out.  So we decided we would use a semi-transparent stain in a greenish/grey color that would blend well with the surroundings and with the color we are planning to paint the house.  So we picked out a color called Drift Grey (from Behr) that had decided grey/green tones.  We bought five gallons of it.  And when we tested it out it was very definitely a light blue color.  In the can it looked greyish/green.  On the deck – blue. 

We aren't blue people.

So we went back to Home Depot with our five gallons and they monkeyed with the color the best they could and it looked darker and greener. 

So we stained.  And now we have a blue deck. 

 

Okay – this picture looks kind of grey but believe me – it's blue.  And can I also mention what back breaking work it is to stain a deck.  I didn't get to be errand girl today.  I was slave girl today.   I kept trying to convince Rick I was a delicate flower and this was too much for me but he wasn't buying it.  Then he told me how red my face was getting and still didn't buy it with that kind of irrefutable proof.  I'm too delicate for manual labor out in the sun.

So our plan is to see how it weathers over the winter and if it stays blue then we'll re-stain it with a solid color rather than a semi-transparent.  We will also be painting the railing a creamy white to match the trim on the house (when we paint it). 

Where is management when you need them?