I feel like the front of our house starts looking pretty abandoned sometimes without a little cheeriness, especially since it never gets used..
But we mostly just had to buy deck screws, stain, and pretty decorations for fun.So not thousands like we would have spent otherwise to get this deck in working order.).
The most time consuming thing was cutting down all the old boards to make the spindles.We really thought the wood was in horrible shape and that we’d need to buy new wood, but once we got started we realized we had more than enough good wood to do what we wanted, and then some!Changing out the railings from that tired-looking old lattice really made a big difference.. You could easily do the same thing with any deck by taking it apart and re-shaping it, or even just moving and re-sizing some stairs and railings.
It’s amazing what a difference you can make with a few basic DIY skills and a little creativity!.We really wanted a comfortable to spot to sit out on the deck, but we also wanted to be able to walk without interruption from the back door to the stairs.
There was really no good place to put the BBQ, so we came up with a pretty fun solution.. We made this little BBQ nook off the side of the eating area so it’s like the cooking station is kind of built in to the “wall” of the deck and we can easily cook and put food right on the table without having to travel far at all.. Just that tiny little deck extension really opened up the whole deck and made it feel so much bigger!
By the way, Chris insisted that I at least pull that giant weed under the deck for this picture.About 2 days later, here’s how things looked.. A few of the floor joists actually needed to be replaced because they were so bad.
Everything else was washed with an industrial strength mold-remover.I know it looks pretty scary in there, but this is when we started to get really excited.
Look at all that progress!“Well”, we thought, “since they’re here anyway, why not get them to move some of the plumbing and put the toilet and new tub where we’d really like them?”…and “While they’re here, why not move the door?
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