$50 Deck Fix

I’m still slowly putting my office back together, but with the weather finally cooperating we’ve spent a lot of time focusing getting the outdoors summer-ready.  Last year we created plant beds and filled them with mulch and this year our goal was to fill them up!  We’ve got almost all of the plants bought and in place, and a couple weeknights, or one good weekend, we’ll have it completed!

A last minute scope addition was to paint the posts and some of the girders of the deck.  It’s no secret that I’ve hated the deck stain since the mis-tint fiasco of 2015, but one thing that has bothered me even more is our laziness (time-crunch + frustration with the color) in not staining the posts and some of the beams the same color. 

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As we were finalizing our plant plans I came up with a crazy idea to stain these posts/beam black so that they almost disappear.  Also, since they are covered from the elements we won’t have to restain them every time we do the rest of the deck because they won’t wear at the same rate, win-win!

I stopped by Sherwin Williams and grabbed a gallon of SuperDeck tinted black (I initially made the mistake of getting semi-transparent and it was way too transparent, I went back and a total of 3 oz of black made the stain almost solid – learn from me and just go solid!).  While Mike planted some shrubs near the front of the house, I got to work painting the posts.  When I stepped back, it was such a huge improvement I couldn’t believe we didn’t think of it sooner!

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After I worked my way down the line, Mike was right behind me digging holes and planting everything, so it was even more of an improvement.  The black worked really well because the posts fade into the shadows underneath the deck, and it blends with the black mulch.

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This area is behind where our garbage containers sit and the rubber matting is where the snow blower is housed during the summer.  The black stain really hides everything now!

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On the other side we had this area that Mike wanted to keep open to store things, but it was such an eye sore for our sweet neighbor.  I convinced Mike to part with the old plastic chairs (that were such a hassle to get in and out) and he organized the ladder extension a little better as well.  We added some stepping stones to allow him easier access to getting the ladder and we’ll add some hostas that will make the area more tidy, but not to precious if he tramples them every once in a while. 

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The additional arborvitaes really hid the underside of the deck, but painting everything black just helped camouflage even more.  Also, I hope I never have to paint behind them again now that they are all in place!

Overall, it took two afternoons to paint everything since we were doing it after work. But now that it’s complete I’m so happy with my last minute idea!