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. 

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!

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.

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!

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. 

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!

I mentioned last week that we stained the deck.

This has been a very difficult process since thanks to the time change we only have about an hour, at most, of daylight every evening. Last weekend we moved everything off the deck, and power washed it. Which, we’ve decided needs to be done every spring, because it was beyond gross. I actually fell one day off the top steps because it was rainy that day and I stepped onto a dirtier area that had become super slick. Not again folks.

After cleaning, we waited for the weekend to get our stain on. Last time we did it on a weeknight and we were out there in the dark until 10:30pm. We learned our lesson. Mike picked the color last time and he picked Warm Golden Honey, which I’ll admit was not my favorite. It definitely faded a lot after this photo, but it was always a little too orange for my taste:

So, this time I wanted to go with a dark color, Sherwin Williams Charwood (SW3542):

Via

We bought 6 gallons (the amount we used last time – thanks past Mallory for writing that note in the blog!) and went to work on Sunday.  When we started the stain looked really gray.  Like, light blue gray, but we had hours of work ahead of us, so I just assumed that as it dried it would (I don’t know, magically?) turn dark brown.  We used 2 gallons up when Mike opened the third and we realized the problem.  The 3rd gallon was the gorgeous brown you see up there, while the 2 we used were tinted Charwood using a weathered gray base.  What are the chances that we pick the 2 out of 6 that are mistinted to start with? 

We had all ready done a third of the deck at this point so our only solution was to return to Sherwin Williams and exchange all of our Charwood for the weathered gray color. 

Instead of my awesome dark brown deck, we have a giant light gray, almost blue one.  Womp, womp.

The more I think about it, the more bummed I get.  I told Mike while we were staining – as a sick joke – that the only good thing about having to stain every couple of years is that I’ll get my Charwood deck in 2-3 years when we have to redo this horrible process again!

I guess if we weren’t so pressed for time (no more staining in November!) to get this project completed, we would have opened more cans to see if they were all gray, taken the 3 seconds to see the bases were labeled differently, or freakin’ tested it on a piece of scrap wood!  Coulda shoulda woulda. 

The next 5-6 months the deck will probably be covered in snow, so we’ll see how I feel once spring time rolls around.  Hopefully the warm weather will make me forget about this feeling and I’ll get excited again about decorating the deck. 

I recently received a comment on our porch reveal asking what our deck looks like.  I admit I’ve been bad about sharing the updates back there.  Back in the day, I outlined the “zones” I wanted to create, and I’m happy to report not much has changed and we even purchased all the large items we didn’t have.  You may have noticed these in the drone flyover post.

And, my original “zone” plan:

We bought a dining set as well as a sectional and a coffee table.  Both are from Target.  The dining set is the Threshold Holden 6-Piece Metal/Wicker Rectangular Patio Dining Furniture Set.  We also bought a navy blue umbrella and granite base (seen here, but no longer available on the website).

The sectional is the Threshold Heatherstone Wicker set with 5 sections with a faux stone coffee table (similar to this set).

Since the weather is crappy more often than not, I don’t leave any of the cushions out full time.  So, instead of the “food set-up zone” I imagined, we opted for a storage container.  It’s fine because we actually have larger parties than the deck alone could handle, so our food tables are set-up down in the driveway with the eating areas.  With all the sectional cushions, dining chair cushions and extra pillows, the storage container alone couldn’t hold everything so we also picked up the Ikea TOSTERÖ for $20 and it’s held up surprisingly really well.  I leave it on top of the storage bin during the nice weather months and then we toss it in the attic of the garage during winter. 

I still plan to add string lights, which we already own from our wedding reception, but Mike and I have to build some supports, which I plan to make semi-permanent so that we’re more likely to use the lights if the supports are always there!  Since we’re 5 minutes away from snow here, this will be a project for next spring. 

But, before the snow hits (and with the freaky 75 degree weather we’re experiencing right now), we wanted to re-stain the deck.  We finished most of it yesterday, but we still have touch-ups and a few sections along the sides to complete, but I’ll be back later to share.  We had a huge hiccup happen, (one word: mistint), and I’m still not sure how I feel about it now.  Hopefully later this week we can add the furniture back on and feel a little better!

Winter is like the Christmas holiday season, sometimes it barely lets Halloween by before making it’s appearance.  Since it’s November and half of our trees have all dropped their leaves, I’ve officially resigned to seeing the white stuff soon.  Mostly because the trees this fall we’re killing it in the color department.  I don’t ever remember our neighbor’s hydrangea tree ever looking this good.

Now that we don’t have any large projects going on at the moment, we’ve tried to be diligent in our cold weather prep around here.  Full house duct cleaning – check.  Full house wipe down from said full house duct cleaning – check.  Deck and patio cushions stored – check.  Installing stair treads – check.

So, a couple weeks ago I was contacted by a company called Handi-Treads that wanted to give us some of their non slip treads to try out. 

Now, this was the first company that has contacted me because of this blog that wanted to give me free things for a review so to say I was a little excited is an understatement.  But, while everyone loves free stuff, this blog doesn’t make us any money, and is still just my little hobby, so I was only going to say yes if it was something that we actually would purchase ourselves.  And, while I’m a little less discerning about things I buy (I’m talking to wobbly bedside table) Mike is very particular about the quality and functionality of things he buys, especially for our home. 

I showed him the website and he was impressed with the material, design, and the fact that they are made in the USA.  He agreed that it would be something he would purchase himself, so I ordered 6 treads in the plain aluminum color, 30” wide. 

You see, from the first email, I knew exactly where to put them.

While I love our deck, and really love our step design, I’ve fallen down these stairs.  Numerous  times. 

It’s kind of silly to write about, but once, the day after I brought my wedding dress home I called up one of my girlfriends/bridesmaids to meet up and show it to her.  It was drizzling that day and I ran out of the house in some rubber flip flops, I literally was running because I was so excited.  I hit the third or fourth step and went down. Hard.  It was horrible.  Everything I was carrying flew from my hands and I fell down hitting my tailbone, my hands, and my heels and then the momentum carried me down a couple more steps until my feet hit the driveway, stopping me.  It was awful.  I cried from embarrassment and pain.  I was shaking and in pain by the time I made it over to meet up with my girlfriend to show off my dress. 

I’m not going to lie, I’ve been known to fall down.  Usually it’s from wearing socks on the hardwood stairs, or running down these deck stairs too quickly when it’s wet or snowing out.  But this time was different.  It’s been about 2 1/2 years since it happened and it took a good 18 months until my tailbone didn’t hurt anymore.  18 MONTHS!  I read on Handi-Treads website that injuries from falls are the most common cause of emergency room visits (Source: National Safety Council).  And, I believe it!  I thought about going to the doctor’s after 2 weeks of being sore, but all that I read said you can’t really do anything for a tailbone injury, except live with it.  Well living with a sore tailbone for over a year and a half sucked.  And it made me very cautious of these deck stairs when ever there was any kind of inclement weather.

We had actually talked about getting some sort of tread system for these stairs (Mike can only tell me so many times to slow down and hold on to the railings) but we weren’t really excited about the options.  We both work in construction and know most of the commercial options out there, but we thought we were stuck with the old sticky treads, or painting something on for our wooden deck.  We both knew what those options would look like after one or two Northeast Ohio winter seasons. 

This is exactly what we were imagining those options looking like.

We had actually hoped to stain our deck before winter hit (oh how I wish we had dropped an extra $3,000 on Trex – not really, but we wouldn’t be stuck staining every couple of years) but like I said, once Halloween is over, the weather just goes downhill from here.  Nice weather days are far and few between but we finally had a couple hours of decent weather yesterday and just enough free time to install the treads. 

In true Danks fashion, neither Mike nor I took the time to read the directions.  Screws were included and I’d call Mike more an advanced DIY'er.  After installing I’d say these are pretty self explanatory and even the most amateur of DIY’ers can handle it.  I read over the directions after the fact and we were right and installed them correctly, so here’s some picture directions of how we did it.

We first cleaned the steps off with a broom (important step since our yard doesn’t last 5 minutes without leaves falling on it). 

We decided they would best be utilized right next to the handrail since that’s where I walk up and down, as well as our guests.

We laid them out to get the right spacing on the left side.

They are a little bowed straight out of the package, but once screwed down they sit perfectly flat.

Mike first measured from the side.

Then measured from the edge. 

Mike then drilled a pilot hole for each of the 8 screw locations on each tread.  He drilled one pilot hole first, then screwed that screw in, then moved on to more pilot holes.  It’s much easier to hold it in place once one or two screws are in.

Then screwed everything in place.

Repeat for each step until done!

 

We decided not to do the top step since that usually gets shoveled pretty well and for some reason I’ve never fallen off the top one before.  We’re thinking of installing the extra tread on our step in the front of the house.

Of course it’s been pretty nice weather (55 and sunny – wahoo) so I haven’t really notice a difference when I walk down them.  But I’m sure I’ll feel better once the rain returns and when the snow finally makes an appearance.  And, once we really started looking at the safety of these stairs, were even thinking of adding some lighting under the stair nosing. I’ll have no excuse to fear these steps!

One thing we really like about these treads are that come next year when we’re finally forced to stain the deck again, they can easily be removed while we stain and put back after it’s dried.  And, while I sometimes care more about the look of something (these are pretty easy on the eyes, especially for a safety feature) Mike always cares about the function.  He’s impressed, especially with the fact that they include screws (such a small detail but super important when you are trying to install something) and he already thought of an instance where he was installing a boat ramp several years ago that these would have been perfect on.  

We have more winterizing left and leaf pick-up has become a weekly chore around here, but I’m happy to have this task checked off the list before I can do myself any more harm.  My poor tailbone can’t take another fall like that. 

To help prevent any more broken tailbones or bruised hands and feet to anyone reading this, Handi Treads is offering a 10% discount using the code blog2014 that can be used to purchase Handi Treads at http://www.handiramp.com/shop/.

Thanks to Handi Treads for providing the non slip treads to help make our deck stairs safer.  All opinions, and embarrassing stories are our own.

It's not all work and no play over here.  We took some time a couple weeks ago to throw a party for our friends and family and decided to add a southern twist to the backyard bash by having a crawfish boil.

We first ate crawfish in Texas a couple years ago and I'd say they are a mix between lobster and shrimp taste-wise, with the fun of a crab fest, (which I used to do every summer growing up and visiting my grandparents in Maryland).

Since we're nowhere near Louisiana, we did the next best thing and had live crawfish flown in for everyone to enjoy.  Since we were shelling out (pun intended) a pretty penny for the crawfish we had to keep the cost of decorations and such to a minimum, so I googled "crawfish boil invites" found some I liked and made my own in Photoshop, (I would have liked to have bought the invites, but I waited too long for them to be ready anyways).


We've never cooked crawfish, let alone host a party serving them, so Mike and I were a little hesitant as to what to expect.  Mike was in charge of research and purchasing the little guys and we ended up going with Louisiana Crawfish Co.  We expect about 30-35 people to show up, so we ordered 70 lbs.  Since the party was on Saturday, we had them shipped to us Friday night.  I was home when the UPS guy showed up, and carried these to the front porch:


Of course, I had to open them to see what was inside and boy did they stink, think swamp water and feet.  Each cooler was cold packed and came with all the seasonings and even some Mardi Gras beads!



Since it was in the high 90's that day I shlepped them inside to keep them cool.  I could hear the little claws scrapping against the styrofoam and the whole house smelled because I couldn't help myself and kept opening the lid.

When Mike got home he used the basement utility sink to wash them off (keeping them in the bag) and repacked them with some ice packs.

The next day we worked our arses off and since it was again in the high 90's, sweated them off as well.  Thankfully my coworker brought his giant tent for us to use after I complained about the possibility of the heat ruining the party.  If it wasn't for the tent, we would have had a lot of sweaty and unhappy guests.  As it was, with the tent blocking the sun and some fans blowing cooler air from the garage around, it was actually pretty cool.


As you can see, we set up the tables under tent, then set up a small tent to the left where the cornhole boards were.  On the deck we set up some chairs, but because of the heat, it wasn't used almost at all.  I wanted to keep the decorations to a minimum, and tried to keep it to red, brown, and white, but being so close to July 4th, it was hard to find things without blue, so I gave in and put up a couple frilly things. 


Besides a couple more pinwheels on the deck, we also added was some sting lights.  I've wanted to do this for some time, and finally had an excuse.  Unfortunately, starting a party at 3 pm means that even the diehards are leaving around 8ish, before it gets dark and lights are even needed.  Because we were so excited about it, (and coming down for the party high), Mike and I did hang out under the lights after everyone left.


We used 2 sets of lights from Target at $12 a piece and zip tied them to a gutter bracket on the overhang.


To create the height at the edges of the deck we used the iron bars from a bar clamp thing Mike uses for large projects.  He used large zip ties to attach them to the deck posts, then more zip ties to attach an extension cord to the lights.  I asked Mike to do this and of course he doesn't understand that esthetically bright orange extension cords don't go with anything, but they were up and I was happy.  And, he even said that the next time we do it, he'll use a black cord.  He's learning. 


In keeping with our minimalist decorating budget, we went hillbilly and prepared and served the crawfish in Rubbermaid containers and coolers.  Truth is, that those were the only thing that would fit all the crawfish.  Before everyone showed up, Mike and our friend Dave washed all the mudbugs and threw away any floaters. 


After a pretty extensive cooking schedule, (something like: bring to boil, boil crawfish for 2 minutes, turn off heat, sit for 15 minutes, take out, put in cooler layering with seasoning, steam for 20 minutes), they were done!  And SO good! 


We also boiled corn on the cob, kielbasi, potatoes and onions to go along with the crawfish, and had hotdogs and all the regular stuff found at picnics like pasta salad, chips, and brownies for those that weren't adventurous enough to try the crawfish.

If anyone's looking to have a crawfish boil, I must first warn you that it's a dirty job.  But, if your willing to work a little for your food and not afraid to get your hands dirty, it's so worth it. 



 My dad had a blast, and definitely wasn't afraid to get messy, or have fun with them!


Even my grandma had fun.  It's a family joke that she always ends up wearing what she eats, so she brought a little help to keep her shirt clean.  For the first time, she was about the only one who didn't leave wearing a little of the crawfish juice.   


Everyone talked about the party for weeks and we're already planning on what we'll do for next summer.  Maybe something different like a clambake?  Who knows, now that we're experts at the crawfish cooking, maybe it'll be an annual thing.

I guess we were a little premature calling the deck complete back in September when we had one of the most tedious tasks still ahead of us.  Before we could really call it done we had to stain it.

There's many schools of thought on how long you should wait to stain your deck, and we've found research from everything from 6-8 weeks, to 3-6 months to allow the pressure treated wood to dryout.  Since we completed it so late in the year, we knew we would be waiting until early spring to think about staining.  This isn't always ideal to go through a Northeast Ohio winter with an unfinished deck, but we got really lucky, (or unlucky for snowboarders like Mike), and had a very mild winter.  So, after the rain settled down around May, we started the plan of attack.  Well life got in the way, vacations were taken, (we're still tan from sneaking off to Florida last week), and we were running out of days to stain this bad boy.

We finally decided that we would clean the deck before we flew to Florida, and stain it when we returned since the cleaning instructions said to wait 3-4 days before staining it.

Before I get into the details I have to warn you there are no action shots here.  Cleaning and brightening and staining are messy and we were always up against the clock during each task, so there was no time for pictures.

We started with the cleaner Mike bought online called Restore-a-Deck.  (We weren't paid or perked, Mike did his usual research and heard this was a really good product.) The cleaner was 1/2 of a 2-part system that included a brightener.  It comes in a powder form that makes 5 gallons when mixed with water.  Mike used a gardening sprayer to apply it and I was in charge of watching the clock and spraying it with the hose after the 15 minute wait time.


The hardest part was doing this on a very sunny and hot day.  The deck is supposed to remain wet while you are applying it, so Mike and I worked in sections to prevent drying out.  Once we were done there was a film left on the wood that the hose wasn't removing, so we borrowed our neighbors power washer to remove it.

I think this is where I might have gotten a little overzealous because while I removed all of the slimy film, I was left with a hairy deck from too much pressure.




We did a little research online and found this isn't the end of the world.  Since we were doing this before vacation, we left it alone and a lot of the hairs were washed away from the couple of rain showers we had.  The wear and tear from regular use and rain will eventually rub all the hairy parts off.

Even though the last thing someone wants to do right after returning from a week of relaxing in the sun is stain a deck, we had prepared ourselves for the task and were kind of excited to complete it and be done with it.  All we had to do was wait for nice weather.  Which we had hoped was going to be during the weekend, but of course we weren't that lucky.  That's why last Wednesday night Mike and I ran around getting our brushes and pan liners and started staining around 5:30 in the evening.  Yes, this was crazy.  No, this is not normal.  Yes, we usually do things like this.

What was even crazier was our neighbors had their annual end of school bonfire party for their kids and a couple of their friends where they burn their school notebooks, (a really cool tradition for the kids!) and kept trying to entice us to drop the rollers and brushes to come over for some beers.  Not sure how we held out, but we did, and finished staining everything around 10:30 that night.  Five hours to stain 625 square feet, with no breaks.  We didn't even care that we hadn't eaten dinner or had mosquito bits the size of quarters, we were done!

As for the actual stain, we used TheSealerStore TimberOil in Warm Honey Gold.  The stain was really easy to use and needed only one coat, (probably due to the fact that it was raw wood and we pretreated it with the cleaner and brightener).  For the whole deck we used about 6 gallons.  We had bought 7.

Since it was so dark when we finished I wasn't able to get pictures until this weekend.  Here's what it looked like after the cleaning and brightening:



And the Warm Honey Gold goodness afters:



And back to back:


It's pretty orange looking to me, but even in the last couple of days since we've finished, it's dulled down a little.  It's a little strange looking out and seeing the giant orange deck that is where the light colored one used to be, but it's a lot more rich looking now and the added protection is good for my peace of mind.

Now we just have to add some lattice, furniture, and landscaping.  Oh gosh, when will it ever end?!