Bringing the deck out of hibernation

Before we bought the house we told our real estate agent that we wanted a place we could gut (and in the words of Randy Jackson) ‘make it our own dog.’  That is exactly what we got.  Someone was looking out for us by giving us a gut job with a great deck which meant that we’d have a refuge from the dust/mess/disaster zone inside.


The prior homeowners built a large deck with composite decking.  The fact that we don’t have to worry about splinters on our bare feet really makes it feel like another room.   The only maintenance we have is an annual power wash.  Another cool feature is a pergola.  The downside of said pergola is that it is painted wood which means it has to be repainted from time to time because it builds up with dirt, mold and smoke stains from the grill.  That time was May 2012.
                                       
The key to exterior painting is to find a day when 1) It isn’t snowing 2) the leaves won’t be falling on wet paint 3) it isn’t too hot 4) it isn’t too cold 5) your kids don’t have t-ball/choir/preschool/birthday parties 6) it isn’t sunny and 7) it won’t rain for 2 consecutive days.  That basically left us with last weekend.

I prepped the wood by first power washing it.  Power washing something above your head means you’ll be soaked and have dirt coming back down into your eyes.  It is a really good time.  I let it dry overnight and then prepped the space by laying lots of plastic.  Using a roller and a brush we applied exterior semi-gloss exterior white paint to the wood.

Now I’m going to use a technical painting term to describe what the process was like.  It sucked.  Bad.  By around 6 PM when we were still at it my husband fed me hot dogs while I stood on scaffolding that is older than I am by a lot.  That is true romance in our house. 
But alas, it is done and hopefully means I won’t have to do it for a long time!