deck | River's world…..

No, not that kind of wood.

The kind that my husband wanted to replace this:

Our deck railings, which are rotting in a few places.

I’ve tried to talk him into ripping the whole deck out and putting in Trek composite…. yours truly is tired of staining every 2-3 years…. but no. He got half of the deck wood at a yard sale, for free.

It must be preserved.

Did it match the existing wider deck planks?

No. But you’re not supposed to notice that.

So…. we shopped for wood and different railings.

If you’ve never shopped for wood with my husband you don’t know what you’re missing.

He used to run a quality assurance shop for helicopters in the Marine Corps and he takes quality seriously.

Does it surprise you to learn that we spent more than an hour searching for 2 pieces….. and he didn’t find any he liked?

It shouldn’t.

But I did come home with new bronze deck balusters.

To be continued….

Take staining the deck for example.

I do it every few years, and that time had rolled around again.

So I went to Lowes and had them mix this color.

A nice warm chocolate brown.

Then I duded up in my paint clothes, gathered my brushes and hacked back the boxwood shrubs that were in the way.

All was well…. until I opened my can of stain.

And saw that.

Does that look like a warm chocolate brown to you?

It wasn’t even close.

And looked positively awful when painted on the deck railing. Like liquid peanut butter.

Blech.

Way too light.

Knowing I’d have to return it but not wanting to change clothes and drive 40 minutes to Lowes, I ran up to the local hardware store for a darker stain.

Of course they were almost out of stain and only had one choice…. which I bought, went home and tried.