I realized that I never updated you guys on my personal challenge to clear out all of the clutter in our house. I am happy to say that while I definitely did not come anywhere near meeting my three week goal; I did make a pretty huge dent.
First and foremost, Mike and I went through all of our clothes and donated 14 garbage bags of stuff to Goodwill. We have both lost quite a bit of weight since moving down here. I think the nice weather makes you want to look nicer in less clothing. (c: We also both had stuff that was just old and no longer our style so off to Goodwill it went. It was liberating. We also both took shopping bags worth of clothes to our local tailor for alterations. Some stuff, like Mike's suits, would just be prohibitively expensive to replace.
I did the same with Emma's closet and playroom, but her stuff went into plastic bins in the attic for our next kid.
I think I have done all that I am going to be able to do with selling my parents old records and cameras. If anyone has an idea of someplace to donate them/ sell them, please let me know. I am all out of ideas.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
We've been busy!
I know... I know... It's been a while since my last post (2 1/2 months!!!) but I have an excuse. We have been incredibly busy. So busy in fact that its too much to fit into one post.
I will begin at the beginning...
This is what our back deck looked like when we bought our house. Actually, when we bought the house it was even worse. The pergola was covered in a REALLY ugly vine and there was lattice up the front of the deck completely obscuring the view so the vine had something to grow on. It was gross. I think there was something living in the vine. I hated to walk out the back door.
Even more upsetting though was the overall state of the deck. According to our neighbors, the people that we purchased the house from did no maintenance anywhere on the house for the four years that they owned it...and that definitely included the deck. It hadn't been cleaned and it definitely had not been sealed or stained. The pergola was in such bad shape that the cross beams were no longer sitting square on the ledger board. We lived with it for a year and basically had resigned ourselves to the fact that we were going to have to rip the entire thing off and start over. Afterall, we were beginning to get tired of constantly removing splinters from our daughter's feet (She refuses to wear shoes out there). Why did we wait so long if it was so bad? Because replacing the deck was not in the budget when there was so much else that really needed to be done. So, it got placed on the back burner.
And then we went to Home Depot one day to get spray paint for another project. Mike and I walked past a display for Deck ReStore, a product which swears that it will seal up any cracks in the old wood on your deck and make your old deck like new. We thought it was too good to be true, but asked the Paint Guy in H.D. anyway. He was amazing and basically walked us through all the steps of what we needed to do to rehab our deck. He even gave us hints on how to apply the ReStore in a slightly different way than what the directions said. Armed with the info we got from the Paint Guy, we decided to give it a shot.
First and foremost, the pergola needed to go. We removed it and cut the support posts down to the ground. Then we replaced the hand rails around the entire deck. They were in really bad condition and one of them had cut outs for the pergola support posts so that one definitely would have had to go.
We also added a few new 2 x 4s to beef up the main posts of the railings so that everything was completely safe.
Then, we scrubbed the deck clean. Our H.D. Rock Star recommended that we use the Behr Premium Plus 2 in 1 Wood Prep. It took us 2 days and 2 containers of the Wood Prep to get the deck clean, but the difference was amazing. It looked like a completely new deck.
Next, we were on to staining. We decided to stain the railings of the deck white and the floor of the deck and the tops of the hand rails chocolate brown. We used Behr Premium Plus Solid Stain in Ultra Pure White for the hand rails and the lattice on the bottom of the deck. It took two coats to get nice even coverage.
The next weekend, we moved on to staining the floor of the deck. Now, the package instructions for the ReStore product had mentioned that we shouldn't apply it when the temperature is over 90 degrees. Unfortunately, this is South Carolina so that would have meant staining it in the dark or waiting until October. Neither of those seemed like an option to us so we took a shot. We started to apply one coat with the roller (as the package instructs) and then planned to wait three hours (again- as instructed) to apply the second coat.
In hind sight, we probably should have set our alarm for the crack of dawn (which we did do when putting on the second coat) and maybe chosen a day that was not 100 degrees. It went on okay but it wasn't as smooth of a finish as what we were hoping for so we went to the pool and hoped it would look better once dry. Luckily for us about 5 hours of 100 degree heat later- the skies opened up and we had a MAJOR rain storm. I think that it helped to smooth out some of the rougher spots.
We had to wait until the next weekend to complete the second coat of the ReStore because it rained nearly every night that week. (I wasn't crazy enough to attempt to do this myself with a 4 year old trying to "help". Before we did the second coat, I went back to my local Home Depot (a/k/a Second Home) and picked up two 3 inch brushes. The paint guy had told us that the first coat is basically like a primer and that the second coat is what is really important. He recommended using the brushes but cautioned us to make sure that we applied a very thick coat.
Thank goodness we listened to him! The deck looks amazing! The bottom boards are completely sealed. We definitely are not going to get any more splinters! It looks like Trex (which is the composite decking stuff) except for 3 packages of the Deck ReStore we spent $117 instead of like $500 to replace the deck with Trex.
I still have to take better after pictures but we need to finish the touch ups and stain the top rails. ReStore carries its own line of solid stains which are available through their website in colors to match the product that goes on the deck.
Just as a disclaimer- I have not received anything from Home Depot, Behr or the people who make Deck ReStore. I did, however, get a free paint stirrer from Ron, the AMAZING paint guy at the Home Depot in Greenville, SC- but I kinda think he was just being nice. (c:
I will begin at the beginning...
Even more upsetting though was the overall state of the deck. According to our neighbors, the people that we purchased the house from did no maintenance anywhere on the house for the four years that they owned it...and that definitely included the deck. It hadn't been cleaned and it definitely had not been sealed or stained. The pergola was in such bad shape that the cross beams were no longer sitting square on the ledger board. We lived with it for a year and basically had resigned ourselves to the fact that we were going to have to rip the entire thing off and start over. Afterall, we were beginning to get tired of constantly removing splinters from our daughter's feet (She refuses to wear shoes out there). Why did we wait so long if it was so bad? Because replacing the deck was not in the budget when there was so much else that really needed to be done. So, it got placed on the back burner.
And then we went to Home Depot one day to get spray paint for another project. Mike and I walked past a display for Deck ReStore, a product which swears that it will seal up any cracks in the old wood on your deck and make your old deck like new. We thought it was too good to be true, but asked the Paint Guy in H.D. anyway. He was amazing and basically walked us through all the steps of what we needed to do to rehab our deck. He even gave us hints on how to apply the ReStore in a slightly different way than what the directions said. Armed with the info we got from the Paint Guy, we decided to give it a shot.
First and foremost, the pergola needed to go. We removed it and cut the support posts down to the ground. Then we replaced the hand rails around the entire deck. They were in really bad condition and one of them had cut outs for the pergola support posts so that one definitely would have had to go.
We also added a few new 2 x 4s to beef up the main posts of the railings so that everything was completely safe.
Then, we scrubbed the deck clean. Our H.D. Rock Star recommended that we use the Behr Premium Plus 2 in 1 Wood Prep. It took us 2 days and 2 containers of the Wood Prep to get the deck clean, but the difference was amazing. It looked like a completely new deck.
Next, we were on to staining. We decided to stain the railings of the deck white and the floor of the deck and the tops of the hand rails chocolate brown. We used Behr Premium Plus Solid Stain in Ultra Pure White for the hand rails and the lattice on the bottom of the deck. It took two coats to get nice even coverage.
In hind sight, we probably should have set our alarm for the crack of dawn (which we did do when putting on the second coat) and maybe chosen a day that was not 100 degrees. It went on okay but it wasn't as smooth of a finish as what we were hoping for so we went to the pool and hoped it would look better once dry. Luckily for us about 5 hours of 100 degree heat later- the skies opened up and we had a MAJOR rain storm. I think that it helped to smooth out some of the rougher spots.
We had to wait until the next weekend to complete the second coat of the ReStore because it rained nearly every night that week. (I wasn't crazy enough to attempt to do this myself with a 4 year old trying to "help". Before we did the second coat, I went back to my local Home Depot (a/k/a Second Home) and picked up two 3 inch brushes. The paint guy had told us that the first coat is basically like a primer and that the second coat is what is really important. He recommended using the brushes but cautioned us to make sure that we applied a very thick coat.
Thank goodness we listened to him! The deck looks amazing! The bottom boards are completely sealed. We definitely are not going to get any more splinters! It looks like Trex (which is the composite decking stuff) except for 3 packages of the Deck ReStore we spent $117 instead of like $500 to replace the deck with Trex.
I still have to take better after pictures but we need to finish the touch ups and stain the top rails. ReStore carries its own line of solid stains which are available through their website in colors to match the product that goes on the deck.
Just as a disclaimer- I have not received anything from Home Depot, Behr or the people who make Deck ReStore. I did, however, get a free paint stirrer from Ron, the AMAZING paint guy at the Home Depot in Greenville, SC- but I kinda think he was just being nice. (c:
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