Thursday 19 June 2008

deck before and after



Before and Afters of the new deck...I have to say it was a pretty painful process; a contractor that only wanted to talk about what he was going to do. Then a deck company that seems great in the beginning, but I can name 20 problems I had including scheduling and contracted fence and deck contractors that could not keep a schedule.

The truth is, it looked great at first, but being a designer, and using this as a learning lesson, staggering the boards doesn't mean every second one should line up; leaning all the fence boards against curing concrete will not result in a plumb fence, and be on site! This one is very important...catch the mistakes as they are happening, go back to your paperwork that you have been so good at recording, and talk to the owner, not the contractor on site if things get bad.

So the fence and deck are vastly better than before. We are going to apply a transparent stain, since I can see the cedar is already greying. I kind of like the grey colour...it goes well with the new grey colour of the house, but I can see the damage water is doing under the pots, and I have found a new Sico product that says it will give you the look of finished hardwood floors.

The new grey colour of the house if really growing on me. The neighbours have been stopping to compliment us on our hard work and colour choice. The mailman is especially pleased; a very nice chap...very gay...I'll take his compliment...integral good taste there.
We are still working on a last bit of white trim, will install new house numbers, lanterns and landscape lighting, but it looks great.
Next idea...two sheds in the yard. One for storage and one for a studio; we want to join them with a deck and step. Storage has always been an issue here, especially now that I have design props to store that I don't want in boxes on top of each other.

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