Posts Tagged "deck"

extreme makeover: the outdoor setting

Posted by Sharon Pakir on Jan 9, 2011 in Home & Decor | 1 comment

I’m actually so proud of this project, I don’t really know how to describe it. The number of hours that has gone into this, and the spectacular result, as been overwhelming – I’ve never been handy, or thought I would be able to do anything this fiddly.

When S and I moved in, I was delighted at his outdoor furniture – he’d bought it in Turkey years ago, and it was gorgeous, heavy-set, great quality. The only problem? It was years old, and showing signs of wear. Rusty wrought iron, split wood with small holes in it, and worn down over years of use. We didn’t want to throw it out, so I started researching how I could rejuvenate it. Lots of research and advice from handy friends later, here’s what I did!

I don’t really have a good “before” shot (mental note – must take “before” shots before jumping into projects!), so this dark fuzzy one will have to do. You can see the dullness of the wood, and the cracks in it. Kind of.

We started by sanding it down – S’s friend Brian helped us with this (I was still pretty injured at this stage so couldn’t use the electric sander). He got it beautifully sanded down, as you can see:

Then, we poly-filled all the cracks in the wood as well. You can see in the pic below – all the lighter bits are polyfilled. Kind of scary, the extent of how crackly the wood was.

After polyfilling (ps, this is so much fun!), we sanded it all down again. Oh yeah, sawdust EVERYWHERE. We also sanded down all the rusted iron, and got down to bare metal in most areas. We used a wire brush to get into nooks and crannies that were difficult to reach.

We also tightened any loose screws and planks that seemed a bit rickety.

Then I started painting. And oh man, was this a long process. I got anti-rust black paint (gloss), and a little teeny weeny paintbrush, and off I went.

Let me tell you, it feels like weeks went past where I just kept sitting out on that deck and whittling away at it with my tiny paintbrush, a steady hand, music playing, and getting into every nook and cranny of those damn chairs.

About 2/3 of the way through, my back flared up REALLY badly, and then Brian bribed his sons to come finish it off. They were not pleased, but did a GREAT job! Yay to child labour!

Then it was time to stain the wood. I was TERRIFIED of doing this – online tales and tutorials seemed too easy, like staining was this walk-in-the-park type activity that any fool could do. There HAD to be a catch, and as we all know, I’m a magnet for “UH OH” moments. I started with trepidation, just painted it on, and wiped it off with a towel.

And OH MY GAWDNESS people, it totally IS easy and idiot proof, and unbelievably, Sharon-proof as well! You just brush it on liberally, wait for the wood to soak it up a bit, then towel it off, and there you have it, you have STAINED. OFFICIALLY.

I finished the first (small) panel so quickly I couldn’t believe it, especially juxtaposed with the hours and days I’d taken to paint the black wrought iron.

The table was the most fun – just slapped it on, basically! At first I was worried about how even the stain was going to be, but I stopped worrying when I realised the wood was going to be as absorbent as it damn well wished, and there was nothing I could do about it. Besides we were going for the uneven/quirky look (yes, I kept chanting  that to myself).

I was even happier when I realised how GREAT the stained wood looked next to the freshly painted gloss black:

Here’s what they looked like after the first coat of stain:

(Yes, I alternated between painting the black and staining!)

And then I slapped on a second coat of stain, and it started looking a really nice deep colour:

I let all of that dry for about 2 days, and then went into the next phase of this project, namely, PRETTIFY and PROTECT. See, I’m a glamour girl and all this wood furniture was a teeny weeny bit too rustic for my tastes. Sooooooo, I thought about what kind of wood I liked that was outdoors – and genius me, it’s WOOD ON SHIPS. You know, high gloss timber on yachts. Ahh, yes. Let me recreate my perfect yacht in my own backyard.

Off I went to Bunnings, and the nice men there recommended me MARINE VARNISH. Admittedly, they couldn’t believe I wanted high gloss outdoor furniture, but I think they’re starting to recognise me at the local Bunnings as “strange lady”. Anyway, Marine Varnish idea was GENIUS! It’s hardy, protects the wood, and is super tough against the elements.

I was only slightly terrified (after all, I’d conquered the STAINING!), bought myself a good varnishing brush to guarantee a good finish (DESPITE me), and off I went.

And it was surprisingly easy.

Here’s how 1 coat of varnish looked:

What delighted me most was how the varnish seemed to meld the stain into the wood even more, and gave depth to the colours. It also dried ROCK HARD, which  made me believe in its protective powers against dents and elements. SO I went with a second coat.

And you will not BELIEVE the  squeals of delight that ensued, people, it was MIRROR finish perfect. Well ok, maybe not, but it was VASTLY improved lemme tell you.

Before moving it all back onto our freshly painted deck, we wanted to put some protecters on the bottoms of the chairs. But apparently, it is impossible to buy the right sized furniture protectors unless you’re willing to spend the equivalent of a gold brick, or a handful of diamonds. And paying lots for crap like this really ruffles my feathers.

So instead we just bought 1/4 metre of felt-like carpet, and cut it to size using a 50cent coin as a guide.

Then we stuck them onto the bottoms of the chairs and table with contact glue (suitable for bonding metal). TADA! All up, it probably cost something like $4, instead of the $80 we were going to have to pay for the commercially sold ones. The cheapskate in me was VERY pleased, and now the very heavy chairs no longer scrape along the deck or make me nervous.

We gave everything a good wipe down with a damp cloth, and then positioned everything onto our deck. AND TA-DA!

So there you have it folks, here’s how ME (aka, can’t be handy, very clumsy princess chick) managed to turn this:

with the help of these:

into this!!!

I know I can’t fully express how excited I am, but I AM. First of all, I have embarked upon the learning of a wonderful new skill. Also, you have no idea what an accomplishment this is, both personally, and in light of having had almost 5 months be written off by an injury. This is almost the only thing I have to show for it!

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backyard blitz: the deck, part 2

Posted by Sharon Pakir on Jan 2, 2011 in Home & Decor | 2 comments

Well. After backyard blitz: the deck, part 1 wherein we painted ALL the beams above the deck, it was time to prep the actual decking itself for painting. If you looked at the picture below, it’d look like the deck was still all pretty and deeply oiled and not in need of a redo.

BUT, the edges and stairs of the deck scream for help:

Every time it rained, the plague-like wearing down of the deck crept inwards, and this was in just 2 short months we’ve lived here, so we decided to do something about it.

We chose painting it over oiling it for several reasons – from the research I did on the vast internets, it turned out oiling lasts 12-18 months, and painting can last 3-6 years. I know what I’D rather be doing every summer other than re-oiling that damn deck. (Ok, I don’t KNOW but you get the idea). Paint meant we could match the deck to the house (and you KNOW I’m all about the pretty pretty matchy matchy), and paint seemed a lot harder to mess up. Both painting and oiling require the same kind/amount of prep, and with paint, you can cover up your mistakes. Off we went, looking for advice on painting the deck.

The problem is, because of our mild-ish weather here in Australia, it turns out MOST people oil their decks. Even those that live by the sea with the harsh salt water and sun. Oiling was the way to go, lots of people gravely assured me, indeed, many had never heard of painting the deck before (and clearly thought I was crazy). My favourite was a male friend who knows of my lack of DIY skill (but didn’t realise my great www research skills) who gently told me, with the air of someone telling a child that Santa Claus doesn’t exist, “No no NO, Sharon, you’re mistaken. Decks don’t get painted. Decks get oiled. You’re PRETTY!”

Usually, inserting that last sentence would’ve been deterrent enough for me to try something I’d never done before, but this time, I was determined. I’d researched this, y’all, and I was going to do it the way thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands of Americans did it.

As with all kinds of finishing work, prepping and priming is the bulk of the job. We got a lot of conflicting advice about how to strip the wood to prep it for painting – paint specialists who flat out told us you couldn’t paint over wood, people who suggested getting a floor sander (those big lawnmower types) to grind the crap out of it, and yet others who assured us just slapping the paint on after a rinse with a high pressure water cleaner would do the job.

What we ended up doing was an amalgamation of all the simplest methods we got advised, put together to create an arsenal of stripping that wood. It seemed to work great. So here it is, The Deck Part 2, wherein we strip that baby down. This post is dedicated to all you other Aussies who desperately want to paint your deck but keep getting told it can’t be done. HA.

(note: I’m sorry about the crappy photo quality and our horrendous outfits. we don’t exactly walk around with a DSLR in our designer clothes to paint and sand!)

We armed ourselves with a cleaning/stripping duo of detergents first of all:

And we invested in… a Karcher high pressure water cleaner. HELLO, GORGEOUS:

It’s description on the Karcher website: For frequent and powerful cleaning of large areas around the home e.g. moss-covered and very dirty surfaces.

Oooooh la la.

We started with the sugar soap, and basically scrubbed it all over the deck liberally.

After giving it a good scrub, I got Mr Karcher working. Oh boy. Was this exciting. Mr Karcher is one real man! It gallantly blasted all the soapy debris OFF the deck, and with such brawn and alacrity!

THEN, we did a second stripping, with deck cleaner that’s specially formulated to help prepare decks for oiling/staining. (Shh, don’t tell it we weren’t doing that!)

We diluted it as instructed, then brushed it on. S got a little distracted.

But he looked SOOOOO cute so I didn’t crack the whip too hard.

After brushing it on, we let it sit for 10 minutes to really let it loosen the oils or do whatever voodoo thing it was meant to do:

You can see the deck is starting to look a bit more worn already, which is exactly what we wanted, but we were concerned that there was still too much oil in there. Oh well, we figured we’d take it as it came.

After the deck cleaner had soaked for a bit, we Mr Karchered it again, this time using the “weapon of mass destruction” attachment. This made SERIOUS jets of water that lambasted everything within sight – in fact, it tore weeds from the pavement, stripped paint off the wall I tested it on (oops) and this got me a little more excited than it should’ve:

After warning S not to be annoying whilst I had that thing in my hands, I sprayed or rather OBLITERATED the deck cleaner soapiness from the boards.

Then, I gave it a second jet, but this time followed each line BETWEEN the decking boards to get all the mud/grime/oil out of them. A lot of gunk and soap came out, so don’t skip this step!

Then we let it dry out again. (Note, if you are using a high pressure water cleaner, wear proper shoes OR don’t ever ever let the jet go on your own little delicate toes. I’m just sayin’…. not that my toes were bruised or anything…)

At this stage, as the deck dried, we could see the deck cleaner had stripped it back a bit more, bringing us closer to the goal!

Lastly, we decided to give the deck a light sanding. We don’t have much experience with the electric hand sander, so S decided to do it BY HAND. People, can I just tell you right now how much respect I have for this man, going to sand down a 30 sq metre deck by hand?? So off he got to work, with determination and zeal.

I sat there and watched, in silent awe. He works fast and diligently, and was done in under 2 hours! If that doesn’t deepen your love, what else would?!

After the sanding, we did one last blast with the water cleaner. You can see even wet, the redness has been stripped out beautifully, and the raw wood is starting to show. Exactly what we wanted.

We crossed our fingers and waited for it to dry…

And success!

The wood was now pretty stripped, a little raw (but not too much), and smooth for a lovely painting surface. So there you have it, THAT is how you strip, prime and prep a deck for painting – with many little steps, lots of cleaning, and some (of S’s) elbow grease!

PART 3 comes tomorrow people, and that’s where you get to see the finished, beautiful, painted deck!

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backyard blitz: the deck, part 1

Posted by Sharon Pakir on Dec 30, 2010 in Home & Decor | 1 comment

So S and I have been on a bit of a home-making blitz since moving in just 2 months ago. So far we’re still a tad embarrassed to receive visitors – moving from 2 very different homes to 1, coupled with travel and time-poor schedules (oh and you know, debilitating condition), we haven’t been as productive at getting our home ready as we’d like.

So far we’ve managed to get most of the furniture chosen, bought and moved in, most of our artwork up, and most rooms are functional but not as pretty as I’d like. Also, I’ve still got embarrassing messes everywhere from things that I haven’t found a logical storage home for and am unwilling to stash haphazardly (lest the gods of missing things comes and nabs them). For the most part, the inside of the house is functional, so we thought we’d take advantage of the summer weather to commit some outdoor time to the house.

We have started with the deck – truth be told, we’ve worked so quickly that I didn’t get any before shots. Picture in your mind a regular wooden deck, with wooden beams and about 30 square metres. Oh yeah, a big deck. Our loungeroom opens up into it with wide sliding doors, so it had to be a bit prettier than raw wood, so we started with the beams, posts and pillars.

First, S’s friend Brian gave everything a good once over with his electric hand sander (we didn’t own one, and were a bit terrified to use it, given it’s our first ever DIY project!), then poly-filled the holes, cracks, and dodgy bits.

Then, S got to work sanding everything down by hand with sandpaper. My job here was to uh… watch, and appreciate his fine handywork. Oh, and shout motivational cheers. With pompoms.

Then, and this is key, ON THE SAME DAY, we decided “how hard can it be to paint it all in a few hours”, and off we went painting. Note: this is going to decline quickly into a tale of despair.

And MAN, did that wood just DRINK up the paint. It was really hard, getting the paint to get ON the wood required some elbow grease – we’d paint a stroke and just watch it disappear into the wood, and then PRESS another layer over that. And this was just the first coat. AND it was all 13 feet high so arduous hours precariously perched right on top of ladders, and lots of trips down the ladder to shift it inches by inches, across the deck as we slowly gained ground. *starts pulling out hair thinking about it*…

Luckily we had 2 ladders, so we could work in tandem.

3 hours later, we were still going, and we weren’t even halfway through. We were hungry, too, but so dead-driven on completing the task that we weren’t about to give up. S contemplated doing some strange things, which you just KNOW means delirium is setting in.

Believe it or not, another 4 hours later, we were STILL going, and oh my goodness, the sun had set, and oh my goodness, we still kept finding random beams that had been forgotten, and oh my goodness, I was going crazy trying to not get paint on the ceiling whilst covering the itty-bitty beams that wouldn’t take the paint and… ARRRRRRRRGH!

And did I mention this was a FREAK day in the middle of summer, where it was about 15 degrees (hence my fleece jumper)… AND it was Boxing Day, which meant all that plagued my mind was how I was missing the sales for THIS?! PAINTING?!

Finally though, 7 hours from when we’d started painting, it was done. Excuse the bad photography, I was so tired S had to carry me off the ladder and put me to bed. Oh, and the grainy iphone photos? The DSLR was too heavy for me to try using, I was that exhausted.

A really bad, shaky-handed panorama shot of the first coat done:

So, with that, sore, achey, tired and grumpy, we went to bed.

We woke up the next morning, and the finish didn’t look bad at all (considering we did a lot of it in the dark):

So we spent the day doing the 2nd and 3rd coats. These went on a LOT more easily, because the wood was no longer raw, and the first coat served as a nice smooth base to paint upon. The second coat probably took about just over 2 hours, and S basically followed me around doing the 3rd coat. All in all, it was about 4.5 hours for the second and 3rd coat, which was INCREDIBLE improvement over the day before!

We didn’t NEED to do a 3rd coat, but the 2nd coat was still a teeny bit patchy, and so I went reading the instructions on the can. We used Wattyl Solaguard exterior paint, and it said it was guaranteed for 10 years with 2 coats, and 15 years with 3 coats. WELL. You didn’t have to tell us twice, so off we went with the 3rd coat.

And man, were we pleased we did – the finish became SO smooth and opaque, and the beams looked like new.

We DID have to buy double the amount of paint we’d estimated/been quoted – but that’s because we didn’t prime (Wattyl Solaguard is self-priming) and like i said, the raw timber just drank the paint. We also hadn’t anticipated (so enthusiastically) doing a 3rd coat.

Verdict: We love it. It was a lot of hard work, more than we’d expected, but sooooo worth it. The deck now looked more complete, and certainly more like a “part of the house” rather than “random outdoor feature”. It also looks more in line with the character of our Edwardian weatherboard home. It makes the deck brighter and more airy, and because it’s our “forever home”, we’re glad it’ll last (with luck) 10-15 years.

It was also our first ever DIY big job, so we were pretty proud with the results. Next step  - the decking itself. Stay tuned for Backyard Blitz – The deck, part 2!!

What we used (all purchased at Bunnings):

Electric hand sander

Sand paper (lots of it!)

Wattyl Solaguard paint in Creamy Natural

Bunnings cheap paintbrushes

Bunnings rollers & paint trays

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happiness is…

Posted by Sharon Pakir on Nov 27, 2010 in Home & Decor, Lifestyle | 0 comments

Friends gathered on your deck on a sunny day, supping on glasses of wine, with yummy food scattered around. Hands reach for treats, glasses clinking, giggles and sounds of happy conversation for hours on end, as we lounge, relax and enjoy the wonderment of our diverse crew, and how we all come together so effortlessly. So much happiness, so much to celebrate, we are such lucky people.

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