One Day.... One Deck

Yesterday while the plumbers were here fixing up our basement bathroom (post to come later) since it was HOT and we knew we would have no water all day we jetted across the city to David and Gina's to help them out. Our friend Dave was helping them out with some electrical problems and Ryan and I had a date with their deck!!! It was a VERY productive day!!! Dave rewired their kitchen so they could maximize on the space... there was an old built in stove that we removed and flipped some cabinets around and the location of the fridge in order to create a fantastic kitchen!!! Ryan and David fixed up the spare bedroom, before they got their new roof they discovered it leaked horribly into the spare bedroom so they had to cut out a piece of the ceiling to get it to dry out. With the new roof on they could drywall up the hole. They did a great job!!! I got to pull out my trusty sander and sand down the deck. This is the same deck a few weeks ago I power washed here. This is what it looked like before.

Not a pretty sight... well I sanded the deck down. Then swept it all off. Earlier we had all gone to Home Depot to pick up a deck primer and paint. Unfortunately since the deck had previously been painted we had to repaint it and we couldn't stain it. We used a Behr porch and deck primer to prime the entire deck. We were hoping to get a coat of the brown deck paint on it too but it was HOT and there wasn't enough time. BUT even with just the primer it looks a LOT better!!!!! Ryan primed the majority of the deck!!! As you can see from the pictures below we got rid of the ugly white plastic lattice. We picked up some wood thinner weaved lattice while out and while we were priming Gina was measuring for the new lattice.

Doesn't it make a HUGE difference??? The plan is to paint the deck itself and the railings a milk chocolate brown. Then the new lattice work will be painted white or a lighter shade of brown. It is going to look fantastic!!!!

That was how our Saturday was spent!!! I will update on the basement bathroom progress soon!!! Its all very exciting!!!

Oh How I Love Thee Powerwasher!

This weekend my baby brother and his wife took posession of their first house. We headed over there on Saturday to help do some tearing down of the basement and some other odds and ends. Lets start by introducing my brother and his wife.

This is their super cute house! Isn't it adorable!!!!

Now the house doesn't need a lot of work, just some paint and the basement has a leak so they have to fix that. While Ryan, my dad and brothers worked on demoing the basement I took on the task of powerwashing the back deck. Now I never understood why people would paint a deck... you stain a deck.. you don't paint it!!! This deck I quickly discovered had not only been painted once.. but twice... Pictures will explain better. This is what I had to work with before I started.

In need of a little tlc! I figured the powerwasher would take of the lime green paint to reveal the little bits of the brown paint. I was VERY wrong!!!! As I started to powerwash the deck it was quickly discovered that the brown paint was the 2nd layer of paint and out came the bright green which the power washer would NOT get off! Can you see which section has been power washed??

Mind you it still looks MUCH better!!! I managed to get the brown paint off and a good chunk of the green paint. So now the deck looks like this.

Still not fabulous... next the plan is to sand the rest of the paint off with an electic sander and then stain the deck. Since it took me about 3 hours to powerwash the deck that was it for the day. But hopefully I can get back soon to help them finish off their deck. I did however steal the powerwasher so I have my own little powerwashing project that I will hopefully get done this week!!