The mulberry Cottage: Back Deck Staining Project

When we moved into our house a new deck had just been put on, but never stained. We waited and waited, weeks and weeks for a 24 hour period of NO RAIN. It took nearly two months, but we finally got cracking on staining the deck.

Here's the deck. It's pretty standard, a little small, but it'll do just fine.

Notice the water? I wasn't lying. It rained A LOT this summer.

We picked a stain that was pretty natural looking. I didn't want anything too red or too brown. Notice our huge, oddly shaped/sloped yard? It's a swampy situation.

Here comes the stain!

You have to start with the rails if you want to stain it all in one go. Painting the posts, banister, whatever-you-call-its is the most time consuming part of the job. Our deck is only about 120 square feet and this part took a good two hours.

After the posts were done, I painted the actual deck (while Alex pretended he was a photographer and snapped pictures of me painting.

Note: Do not use a roller to stain your deck. You will get air bubbles in the stain and die. In my defense, the roller was all Alex's idea. Also, start your staining in one of the back corners and work your way to the front. This ENSURES that you won't have to step on your work.

The finished project! The deck is still wet in this picture. The stain didn't dry this shiny. The next weekend we purchased a new patio set and repositioned our grill to complete our outdoor living space!

While I was hard at work, Alex snapped some photos of the annuals in our yard.

Pretty, no? the boy has skills.

Also, did I mention that my wedding present came early? Well, it did and I have a brand spankin' new Canon EOS Rebel 2ti to prove it!