Deck Staining--Done

As I said this morning, it was deck staining day at the Aerie. However, before the stain could be applied the deck had to be cleaned of all the sunflower hills and thistle seed the birds have scattered upon it since December. Unfortunately, even though the deck boards were butted up against each other when we laid the deck, some shrinkage did occur and gaps opened up between boards--gaps which were just perfect for thistle seeds and sunflower hills to become trapped. I tried blowing them out with the leaf blower attachment of my shop vac but that didn’t work. Then I tried vacuuming them out using the shop vac and that didn’t work. Finally I resorted to one of man’s ancient tools…



Yeah, it’s a stick with a nail in it.

I got down on my knees and scraped the cracks to get the grunge out. And it worked—mostly. What came out looked very much what you might expect to see at the bottom of a Styrofoam cup at a Skoal convention. I mean, it just wasn’t real pretty.



See. I’ll either have to move the feeders off the deck or get the birds a spittoon.

Anyway, I would scrape then vacuum and then scrape and vacuum some more until I decided I had gotten all that I was going to get and the rest could stay there and rot for I care.



This is my little friend Mr. Shop Vac enjoying his day in the sun. This portion of the deck measures 10 feet wide by 34 feet long. There’s another 10’ by 20’ portion under the covered porch around the corner from where I took this photo.

It was just after noon when I decided it was time to start staining if I intended to finish this job today.



The stain was Olympic Maximum Naturaltone Cedar. I think the dark tone really adds something to the deck. (Don’t let the glare off my pate distract you from the dark, rich color of the deck. And I did put a hat on soon after this was taken so as to prevent my brain from completely frying.) I stained three boards at a time from end to end hoping to keep the edges wet as I worked and thereby prevent any overlap from showing. It mostly worked.

I even talked Terry into doing some of the staining.



Sure, she only did three boards, but I really, really needed a break. (I was going to stain her into the corner but somebody had to finish cooking dinner.)

So there you have the story of how I spent my day. Yeah, I did finish but by the time I did (7 PM) the shadows were quite long and I thought I would hold off on taking a photo until tomorrow.

Now, if you will excuse me, I think I’ll go take a couple of pain pills and muscle relaxants for my back, a hot shower for the rest of me, and then hit the sack. I’m bushed!