Deck Transformed

We have a brief break from the oppressive heat waves, so I attacked our deck. Today's post has little car content. I just wanted to post on this since it took so long, and therefore got in the way of generating car content. For those who still remember, my condolences to the families of the victims of the 9/11 attack.

Power Wash

post power-wash

This journey started with a basic powerwash. We knew that with the change in the weather, any remaining moss from the prior year will quickly grow back and make the deck as slippery as ice with the first rain. To avoid the moss quick return, we simply powerwash it. Boo bought one a few years ago, but I had the time, so I took a turn this year. Things to remember for next time: check that you have the blaster tip set to fan and not cone before pointing it at anything, and it's okay to start with a low power setting first, if you aren't sure. I didn't do any permanent damage to the deck, but a few boards got chopped a little bit by the cone on high pressure.

Once the deck was clean, we could see that lots of the stain had seen better days, and some decking was going to need some holes solved. We didn't want to lay out for a whole new deck surface, nor did we want new boards to look all new and shiny next to the really old ones, so we decided to reduce the footprint size and use some boards we removed as donor material to patch holes.

Pry Apart

mid-way thru pry-apart

So, the deck has seen better days. It was kind of neglected by the prior owner the last few years she lived there, and we haven't done anything to it since we moved in (See Move Again for that fun). Instead, the boys have used it to work on skateboarding antics. So, we have a few holes to go with some rotting boards. I got a 24" wrecking bar from HomeDespot and removed around 10 planks, including the 4 rows closest to the house. We decided that we could live without the first 2 rows and still have that edge of the deck place-foot on the patio. This took a little finesse to pull up a board in the middle of other boards without meaningfully damaging either. I found that placing the wedge-end between the boards, with the angle facing the one I intended to remove, and applying steady leverage, the nails would give a little bit. By repeating the process, the end would start to lift from the deck enough for the wedge to get underneath and then I could work down the plank, lifting it, with the nails still in it.

Put Back Together

mostly sanded

I collected all of the boards and removed the nails. During removal, I considered the condition of the board. A few were rotted from end to end. Others had a hole and a couple had both holes and rot spots. I selected boards which just had a hole from the skateboarding and cut them to fit the gaps created during removal. Because we were shortening the deck by 2 planks, I had more material than gaps, in theory. We really didn't want to use new wood, if it could be avoided, because we knew that the new boards would not blend as well. I ended up with enough material to fit the gaps, and had a few feet of left over viable wood. I could tell during the re-install, though, that I would need to replace more boards next year or the year after.

Sanding
Once the deck was gap-free, it was still an ugly red-ish gray deck. While I could have just painted it, I wanted it to look better, especially after I'd already put in around 8 hours on it. So, I grabbed my belt-sander and a stack of 100-grit belts. I would have used something with a more coarse grit, but I had 100, so I used 100. Plank by plank, I sanded the loose red off, and got down to where most of the board was its natural creamy color with some red streaks. This took 6 hours, and it's very dusty. Like any paint job, though, the top coat is a reflection of the work performed underneath. It was unpleasant work, and had me walking funny for 2 days, but the final result showed that effort.

Stain
I let the deck sit for a week after sanding it. In part, this was because I had a job to get to, part of it was because I could barely walk, much less crawl around and part of it was other distractions. Regardless, after a week of high temps and dry winds, the deck was ready to stain. So, we broom-swept it a couple of times and went over it with a leaf-blower a couple of times. Still, there was a thin film of dust, evidenced by the dust on our clothes after staining.

finished deck, drying

We started at the far end, working one plank at a time, and getting the hard-to-reach spots first. As best we could, we would finish a small area on a board with the brush stroke going from the unpainted into the painted area, eliminating brush-marks. With Boo and I working this part together, the deck was stained in 4 hours. This included the front facia, but like the rest of the job did not include the bench nor the fence. For future reference, we used semi-transparent "chocolate" stain (this stuff and referenced in the picture), and the deck required a full gallon, leaving about 1 cup in the bottom of the can for touch-up.

That's it for today. After staining in the heat, we spent the rest of the weekend relaxing... except for helping T with his A4. I'll probably post on that at some point. Anyway, thanks for following along, and there's more car/bus content coming.