Deck Refinish

This weekend we spent almost every minute of daylight working on our deck. This project has been on our To Do list since we moved in to our house, but we just never got around to it until now. Earlier in the week, we spent a day prepping the deck for sanding: driving screws deep into the planks, smoothing the railings, and letting the kids feel like they were helping out by sanding the floor of the deck.


All day Saturday we spent sanding each part of the deck, and also sanding and sealing our table and chairs that go on the deck. Like the deck, our furniture was overdue for a refinish. On Sunday, we applied a coat of stain to all parts of the deck.


It was a TON of work, and both Mark and I had aches and pains in new places when it was all done. But now it's done and drying. It was a huge project on our list for a year now, and at last it is done. What appeared to be a ratty, creaky, old deck, ready to be replaced, now looks almost new, and feels very solid to walk on.

We let the kids use the power sanders on the deck while we sanded the railings and sunk all the screws.  As you can see, almost all of the original red stain is gone from erosion. What is more, a lot of the screws were sticking up 1/4 inch above the wood, the boards creaked, and the grain of the wood was so weathered it was as bumpy as a washboard.

Just sinking the screws made an immediate difference. The floor no longer creaked and shifted, and we could move around without catching on screw heads.

Mark used a belt sander for some of the railings, but others were so bad he had to use a hand planner.

There is something very satisfying about using a sharp hand plane. It is like popping bubble sheets.

Chief Sand-em-smooth

We rented a big floor sander for the day. It took five sandings of the whole deck (about 8 hours) to get it flat and smooth.

While Mark sanded the floor of the deck, I sanded and stained our table and chairs. It was harder work then you'd think. We re-coat our teak furniture every spring, so there was 3 years of weathered varnish to get off.

On Sunday we stained, starting with the railing and detail work.

In the 2nd half of Sunday, we started coating the floor with rollers on poles.  We were racing the clock at this point since it was supposed to rain that evening. Our stain was oil-based, so it wouldn't wash away, but it needed to have enough time to absorb and dry in the wood so that the finish didn't look muddled.

The finished deck. It is not completely dry yet, so it looks darker and shinier then the final result.

Hooray! A big project done!

A Fresh Perspective

This Saturday while Mark was away for a few hours fixing up a friend's house, I got The Urge to organize the boys' closets. I've learned that when this Urge comes on, I just have to take advantage of it because it's fleeting - when I have The Urge, my work goes quickly and I enjoy it.  When I try to organize without The Urge, it's drudgery.


So, I put Cars on the TV, armed the boys with snacks, and got to work.  I cleared out some old toys and outgrown clothing, moved some furniture around, and reorganized toys. What resulted was an impromptu form of toy-rotation.  If you're not familiar with this concept, toy rotation involves keeping a small number of toys out for play and storing the rest.  This way children become more interested with a small number of toys, and when they lose interest after a few weeks, you put them away and bring out the stored toys, and Voila!, new interest in old toys!  


Instead of storing toys away as in traditional toy rotation (which I've found to be more work that it's worth), I simply moved toy bins around from room to room. I moved the toys from the boys' room into the living room, and visa versa.  Amazingly, Tommy gained new interest in his train set that was untouched for weeks, simply because I moved it to a new room.  He played with it all day Saturday and all Sunday morning, until we had to pry him away to go to the playground and then have lunch with grandparents.