Deck Evolution

The story of how we got into our house is rather interesting. A few years ago we were in our first tiny starter home in West Valley City. We had been there less than two years when I decided to act on a whim and see how much we could sell the house for, prompted by articles I'd been reading about the housing boom and the seller's market. A close friend of mine that happened to be a real estate agent said he could easily sell the house for $____ which blew my mind right out of its skull since it was over $50k more than we'd bought it for 18 months prior. Sherri and I talked about it and decided we would test the water. We listed it on a Friday night. The third person that walked through the door on Saturday made a full price offer and wanted us out within 3 weeks.

Wow, this home selling stuff is easy! Naturally we'd be able to find a house just as easily to BUY right? Wrong. Very wrong. We rode with our agents to several houses and were getting more and more discouraged. We considered building in North Salt Lake right next to the toxic waste facility and legacy highway for crying out loud. I mean, we were actually entertaining the risk of having our future children born with three eyes, or no hair, or flippers for hands. I was in the process of building my screen door business and did not have the time to dedicate to looking for homes. I was working from sun up to sun down. It was a stressful time and the first real strain we'd seen on our marriage.

Sherri called me one day while I was working in 110 degree heat in my shop and said "I found a house I think I could be happy in." "Offer." "Well I want you to see it." "I don't want to see it, I don't need to see it, call Derrick and get an offer in immediately." So that evening we submitted our offer. The home had gone on sale that morning at 9 a.m. and by 5 p.m. they had 3 full price offers. They never even put a sign in the front yard. We were told that we had until the following day at 5:00 p.m. to submit our final and best offer. Time to get strategic. Time to pull the heart strings.

Sherri got us all dolled up and took us over to the house the following morning to see the house. I was instantly in love with it. It was all brick and built in the mid 70s. Inside it had one wood wall, one brick wall, and one lava rock wall. Totally retro. The yard was brilliant. But what sealed the deal was the large covered deck out the back. I knew I had to have this house. We lingered there intentionally long after we'd seen the house so we could chat up the owner, Kris, that had left for her morning walk when we got there. She was somewhat surprised to see us still there when she got back but she launched into a conversation with us anyhow. As it turns out, she lived just down the street from Sherri many years ago and Michelle used to babysit their kids. We were a lock. The house was ours.

I learned very quickly that older homes require special love. For instance, I managed to flood the basement twice in three days in our first month in the home with the manual sprinkling system. And the gorgeous lovely deck needed some love. It turned out to be the project from hell.

There are three ways of doing things: 1) Half-azzed. This is where you know you are being lazy, cutting corners, cheaping out on materials, etc. 2) Over the top obsessed perfectionist. This is where you spend 5 days to do 2 days of work, spending a small fortune on materials. 3) Inbetween the first two. Appropriate attention to detail, hard work, common sense on materials. I tend to lean toward #1. Sherri leans toward #2. When it came to refinishing the deck we went with #2, therefore it became Sherri's project. Her animal.



We started by power-washing the deck. In this first series of photos you see what the deck looked like after it was power washed. Some of the stain came up in certain places on certain boards, but for the most part it simply removed all the dirt. Our goal was to match the existing stain as closely as possible. We first tried to simply stain over what was there, but we found that the stain just puddled...never drying and leaving a gooey mess. So we had to power wash it again and this time we would sand it down.

Now my vision of sanding a deck was to go over it lightly, applying just enough pressure to rough it up and prepare it to absorb the new stain. Sherri's idea was to remove every fleck of old stain to get the wood to its natural color. We went through the gauntlet with renting a variety of power sanders and spending a fortune on sand paper and pads, but Mark at Home Depot didn't charge us a dime due to a faulty unit. I'd like to take this opportunity to recommend the Home Depot on 90th and Redwood. I have never ever ever been shown the level of customer service and personal attention than I did from Mark in tool rental. That place has won a customer for life. We paid nothing for what would have easily been $350.00 in rentals and materials. Top drawer.

Once the deck was adequately sanded down we started applying stains. The first one Sherri bought was a "semi-transparent" reddish brown color called california rustic, which turned out to be an almost opaque paint. So she re-sanded what she did and started over with a toner in the same shade. We were looking for something that added color yet allowed you to still see the texture and grain in the wood. This series of pictures shows the end result. We are both thrilled with the outcome and are once again enjoying our lovely deck. And the piles of laundry and dishes are finally being attended to now that the deck project is done!