Choosing a deck stain

If you follow me on instagram, you know that we did a little deck staining this weekend. We opted to start with the horizontal uppers first, planning to do the floor and fence later. Our original plan was to do everything dark, but once we had the slats done we thought that maybe the floor would be too hot on our feet if it were dark. We had a couple of ideas like doing the floor another colour, or doing a border in the dark with the floor a walnut or something, but I thought I'd throw it out here to see what you thought.

As an FYI, the white part of the house you see there will be covered in stone and the windows will be redone.

The colour of the dark uppers is Charcoal by Wood-Shield Beauti-Tone (it shows a bit darker on the wood in my opinion)

What would you do?

One Bedford: Deck Inspiration

As I mentioned in my last post, I was really impressed with the entrance at One Bedford. What I loved most were the straight lines and wood colour of the dividers. I would love that look for our deck and fence. Mark says that the wood is natural, worn over time, but I couldn't tell. What do you think? We're also looking for accent colours for our house and I'm really loving the green-grey around the frame.

The dark rock used in the garden caught my eye as well. We have grasses with white rock on our deck and just last week I was saying to Mark that I wanted to try the dark variety. Super pretty.

summer dreamin'

via

I'm excited to sit on the back deck soon... I can't wait until I can hang out there with Leo all day and not think of this dreary weather. I was reading Suzanne Dimma's blog this afternoon and I was reminded of Karen von Hahn's backyard. I just love her outdoor couch with all of the colourful pillows. I think I'll a bit more colour to my little sitting area this year. Ahhh Summer....

Deck - Before and After

What better time to show the before and after of our deck than on the first day of fall??? I meant to post this sooner but I didn't get around to it. The flowers don't look near as full as they do here and everything is getting a bit orangy and crispy but that's ok...

So here is the before shot:


And the after!


Mark designed it and then we enlisted the help of a work friend to put it together for us and he did an amazing job.

Next before and after will likely be the baby's room! We're ALMOST done. I still need to make a window blind, pick up and recover the glider and ottoman from my Mom, put up some pictures and a few shelves and that should be it! Oh I'm going to make a cute little owl softie too... better get too it all!

Happy Fall y'all!

hopefully the rain will stay away today

This week we had a deck built out back -- there was an area of the yard that dipped down after we stepped out of our house (on three shakey steps that I wiped out on 2 weeks ago) that was full of mini, annoying rocks that stuck to our feet and stabbed our toes when we walked on them. After that area is our back yard which we love...

We really wanted to find a way to bridge the gap (ahhh a term we love to use in the corporate world... all too much). So M got some of his peeps over (who just happen to have a little side gig making decks) and they built one in 4 days. AND...we...love...it. Seriously, but guess what, I don't have any pics yet. I have before pics, but those are boring. We got a little mini outdoor loveseat and table too so I'm just going to fancy it up a bit and then I'll share pics. But I love that I'm sitting out here, on my computer, sipping coffee on a breazy saturday morning.

But really, even if we didn't have the deck I'd be sitting out here any way likely sitting in the annoying little rocks... because I don't feel like doing anything else. I've already been to the gym this morning where I think I pushed myself way to hard. I don't think I'll listen the next time the instructor tells us to put more weight on our bars if we've been coming to the class for awhile. I almost cried three times it was so tough. She keeps saying we'll thank her for it soon but I'm not sure about that right at the moment.

I also went to a new market after the gym to check it out - I had $8 dollars in my purse and they wanted $5 for parking so I whined and asked them if I could give them $3 instead because it was my first time. They obliged thank goodness because then I wouldn't have had enough for my yummy lettuce, chard, dill (smells so freaking good) and purple scallions.

ANYWAY enough of this ranting -- I'm sitting out here contemplating what to do next for the day, which looks like it's going to be cleaning the bathroom unfortunately. We're heading to a BBQ later and I just hope the rain stays away at least until later on in the night when I will have had a few vodka tonics and I really won't care what the skies deliver.

Happy Weekend Y'all!

~lealou