Starting on May 6, this shows some of the splintered boards damaged by 10 years of rain and direct sun.
Nothing like a giant splinter in your foot.
Unfortunately, to get the deck boards out, I had to remove some of the trim work around our 4 French door/windows.
Closeup so I'd know what it was supposed to look like when done.
I replaced about 15 boards with 10-16 foot new boards. I also replaced about 6-8 boards by flipping over some not-so-bad old boards and recutting them to fit a new space.
All in all, I spent about $240 on new lumber.
Though this is not a picture of me using a router, I routed the edges to make the boards look as good as the originals. Nice shot of my thinning hair!
Watch your step!
The first 2 boards in the foreground are old boards not changed. The next 3 are old boards that were not so bad on the bottom side, so I flipped them over and re-used them. The next 7 boards are old. Then the next 8 or so are the brand new boards.
I rented this sander for 4 hours, and purchased 6 pieces of sand paper. I eventually made 2 additional trips to the rental store, went through 11 pieces of sand paper, and kept the sander 24 hours.
I also prepped the front porch by sanding it.
The deck looked really nice and pretty uniform after all the sanding.
The leaf blower also takes care of sawdust.
What a goofy look I have!!
The stain is TWP brand, which is supposedly the best. It ought to be, for $165 for 5 gallons!!!!
The new boards did not absorb the stain excess as well as the old boards.
You can easily see the new boards shining. By morning, it had mostly dried, and I wiped up any remaining wet spots.
I added some extra flashing under the French doors.
I put back new trim, and Seth painted it (before I put it back). Then I caulked it.
The front porch looks a lot better.
Much nicer than before.
Wish I would have taken a "before" photo of this kid's picnic table. While doing the deck, I also replaced the boards on this item Lori found somewhere. She painted it green, and painted the carriage bolts on top, black. Ray, my neighbor, helped me cut the slats from 1x6x10 treated boards. Then I routed, sanded, and stained.
Very nice.
No more splinters!
Go look at http://picasaweb.google.com/blainnc/DeckProjects/photo#5204863123107666034 for a good before shot of this.
Now all we need is burgers and people!
