Back Deck: Accomplished!

I know, It's been a long time coming. But here it is. Finally. But I can't give out all the goods too quickly can I? So let me give you the full run-down.
Friday night after work John and I headed to Lowes for our "date-night". After lots of research and talking with my cousin Allyson and her hubby Benny from Living Green, Saving Green we were fully-knowledged on how to tackle this bad-boy.  Benny works at Benjamin Moore and he was such a great resource to learn from. From what Benny said, we needed a semi-transparent, semi-solid stain for the best UV protection and weather seal for our pressure treated wood. He recommended Cabot, a well-known company for excellent results. It is a little more expensive, but it seals so well that you don't have to re-apply yearly. It can last us up to 3 years of protection. Umm... SOLD! We prepped the deck last weekend which I posted about HERE, but I did go the extra step of vacuuming it off before we skipped, ran, headed to Lowes.


I let John pick out the color. I figured since this was considered "man-land" he should do the honors. Let me just say, I Looooove it. He did such a great job picking it out! It's called New Redwood.
I had mentioned in my previous post about loving the look of white spindles, and yes, I still adore them. But for all the work we were going to have to put into our deck already, we decided against the two-tone look. It would have cost us a lot more money to buy the extra paint, and to tape off each one would have just put me over the top.
On Saturday morning we got up bright and early. It was a little like Christmas. We knew we could FINALLY get started on this long awaited project.
We laid out all our supplies:

When you go to pour your paint (for any project) puncture holes in the rim of the paint can. This allows for excess paint to drip back into the can instead of puddling and spilling over the edge. A trick my Dad taught me. It works. Every. Single. Time.

If you do this project, be sure to buy a roller made for decking. It has a much longer knapp to really get down into the cracks and crevices of the deck. It also holds a lot of stain, wich meant fewer trips to the pan.


Let me say, this project took TONS more stain than we thought it would. We only bought one gallon since the coverage was approx. 750 sq. ft. One gallon only got us 1/2 way through the job. We began with the railings (working top to bottom). Then headed to the spindles, and finally the deck floor. The floor took 1 gallon itself. Wowza. So I am proud to say, it only took ONE trip back to the hardware store to finish the project :) If you know my family, this is a major accomplishment.


If you remember, this is what our deck looked like before: (warning, picture overload)

Maggie posing :)

Now, after lots of painting:

We Looooove it. It's perfect for all those summer parties. We are going to so enjoy this space.

I know you're wondering about this part of our deck:

Yes, we have plans for it too. Since it's an older deck, we've decided to tear it up and replace it with stone pavers. Of course this won't happen for some time, but we do have plans for it. Just so you know we haven't forgotten about it.

Do you have plans to do anything like this to your house? Do you think we did a good job? What would you change? I love reading each and every comment, so always, leave the love!