Last week I detailed my very ambitious plans for the long Memorial Day weekend. The weather didn’t really cooperate and most projects took longer than I expected, but all in all, I’m quite proud of all of the work we did.

Our ambitious original list: (Updates/commentary in bold)

• Buy all of the components for the pizza oven (just in case it doesn’t rain!) <– We hope to finish the design this week and look at sourcing our bricks and insulation boards and blankets (Who knew, right!?)
• Build the pizza oven base and secure the steel sheet <– Way easier than we expected. Just heavy. (And even then, it was mainly Brandon!) 
• Repair (re-do) the step under the new stairs in the backyard (concrete blocks and bricks) <– I think I have most of the necessary project components, but ran out of time — I blame the old cement and rebar that we spent an hour trying unsuccessfully to dig out.
• Put up the bistro lights (!!!)  <– LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! Let the patio parties commence! 
• Cut the wine barrels in half (If it works: stain and remove rust and figure out what to plant) <– Major success on this one. HOWEVER, it took WAY longer than I expected it to. I’m excited to start on the tutorial and share it with my faithful readers, likely in next week’s Wine Wednesday post. Check back on June 5.
• Take a trip to the dump, if there is time  
  
• Paint the new trim in the living room, touch up the wall paint <– I had too much fun celebrating birthdays and visiting with family. I’ll get to it one of these days… 
• Paint the new bathroom baseboards <– Ditto
• Caulk the hallway siding <– Ditto
• Paint the ceiling patch in the hallway <– Ditto
• Put the extra hardy board siding on Craigslist/take it to the dump <– Dump run!
• Buy some Copper River salmon and cedar plank it on the grill. (YUM! One of my favorite culinary times of the year!) <– We shared the deliciousness on Sunday’s Long Weekend Progress Report post
  

And now? I’m exhausted. I need a weekend from my weekend. Time to relax on the couch with the cats.

I’ll leave you with the latest from Megan’s Island: our backyard! At least all this rain is good for something! Most of those plants were planted in the last month!

Hello, gorgeous. I love our backyard!

Have a great week!

Brandon and I took advantage of the nice weather recently and dedicated some quality time to the new stairs and lower deck.

So what did we do? We woke up early, grabbed our 30 percent off coupon and headed down to Sherwin Williams for some deck stain. Oh yeah, deck stain. You know what they say, right? No stain, no gain. “They” don’t really say that, but they probably should, since a little preventative staining helps keep the deck in tip-top shape from sun and water damage.

The lower deck is a knotty cedar, so we wanted to keep the stain pretty natural and let the grain of the wood really shine. We were mainly looking for the water and sun protection and help in blending the looks of the new and old decks. And? Success.

Natural Oil-Based Toner

We bought two gallons and ended up using the Sherwin Williams Deckscapes Exterior Oil Toner Stain in Natural. We were hoping for the water-based toner, which they’ve advertised, but only a handful of stores in the STATE carried it. So, oil it was. We used this stain. It ended up costing ~ $35 per gallon with the coupon.

While we were at Sherwin Williams we also bought a paint pad, specifically used for painting/staining decks. We had the other necessary accessories at home: disposable gloves, a 2.5″ paint brush, about 1 million (12 in actuality) foam brushes, a paint tray and a disposable liner, and a rag for cleaning up and wiping off the stain, once it had set in.

In anticipation of our nice weather, Brandon cleaned with deck with 30-second outdoor cleaner and we let it dry for 12 hours. Boy was it clean!

Before…

I haven’t had any staining experience and Brandon has had lots, so I took his cue on what to do. It was pretty simple: cover all of the wood with stain (don’t let it pool), wait for it to dry, and wipe off the excess. And, try not to get any on yourself. (I failed in that regard.)

First, collect your supplies and re-clean the space you’re going to clean. We have two big trees in the backyard, so quite a bit of debris had fallen in the 12 hours since the last big cleaning. We used our fancy new leaf blower. Here are the other supplies you’ll need. Please note that essentially nothing will be salvageable from this project. The stain is so sticky that everything will need to be thrown away. Make sure you use good disposable gloves.

We started with the stairs and worked our way down, wiping extra stain off of the metal grid as we went. Staining took a lot longer than I expected. I think the stairs, railing and the lower deck took us three hours. It’s really not that long, but compared to my favorite pastime of spray painting, for-real painting takes an ETERNITY! Not really, but you know.

Staining, staining, staining…

We started off with the normal 2.5″ paintbrush in trying to get on both sides of the railing. It didn’t work. Luckily, I had a million-pack varying sized foam brushes. (I only needed a few for a separate project, but the million-pack was such a deal, I bought 20 instead of two. Good thing I’m so resourceful and my craft room is so organized!)  The foam brushes did just the trick, but unfortunately didn’t last all that long. We used all one million (10 or so) on the stairs and deck. Pretty minimal investment for such return.

For the long, straight pieces (think railing and decking), we used pole-mounted sponge pad applicator that looked a lot like a larger version of the tool I normally use to edge paint on walls and trim. This new tool worked great, but the sponge pad kept slipping off of the applicator. It was pretty annoying but didn’t seem to effect our work. For the long decking, we used the foam brushes to spread the stain between the decking and then used the  paint pad with large, long brush strokes. This was a genius idea and I’m glad that I had it.  Once the stain was applied, we went back over it with a rag and removed it. More success!

The final product! That’s a well-stained deck!

Now for that sun to come back, so we can head down those freshly-stained stairs and enjoy the backyard and patio!

With our home to-do list swirling around my head in anticipation of the long weekend, I’ve got lots and lots to think about. The weather reports are undecided on whether its going to rain or not, so I have ideas of both indoor and outdoor projects.

Weather dependent, our grand weekend plans will hopefully include:

• Buy all of the components for the pizza oven (just in case it doesn’t rain!)
• Build the pizza oven base and secure the steel sheet
• Repair (re-do) the step under the new stairs in the backyard (concrete blocks and bricks)
• Put up the bistro lights (!!!)
• Cut the wine barrels in half (If it works: stain and remove rust and figure out what to plant)
• Take a trip to the dump, if there is time
• Paint the new trim in the living room, touch up the wall paint
• Paint the new bathroom baseboards
• Caulk the hallway siding
• Paint the ceiling patch in the hallway
• Put the extra hardy board siding on Craigslist/take it to the dump
• Buy some Copper River salmon and cedar plank it on the grill. (YUM! One of my favorite culinary times of the year!)

What do you think? Think we’ll have enough to do over the long weekend?!

Guess what came in the mail today!? OUR NEW BISTRO LIGHTS! EEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

They’re here! Hopefully the guide wire and light bulbs come tomorrow!

It doesn’t look like much now, but combined with some posts and some clips, these will add the finishing touches to our so-close-to-perfect back yard.

We’re hoping to get these up before June, and of course we’ll post photos as soon as we can!

The deck is one of my favorite parts of our house. We have a view of Lake Washington and Seattle, Seward Park specifically. We have a lot of trees on Megan’s Island, but we’re able to see the sunset from time to time. This was one of the most spectacular sunsets I’ve seen in the last five years. (This photo doesn’t do it justice!)

Hello, sunset

With our deck remodel in mind we bought two Adirondack chairs last summer and haven’t really had a chance to enjoy them…until now. The deck has been retrofitted and is as stable as can be. The patio is built and we’re ready to move the wrought iron table and chairs to their spot down there (photos to come on the next sunny day, when we can properly stage it).

Those Adirondack chairs have been pretty lonely looking so I set out on an outdoor pillow and stool mission. My mission started with talking to my friend Esther, who is in charge of all of my sewing projects. (I tried creating and sewing a pair of shorts one time in high school and was fired from sewing from there on out.) Esther agreed to help me sew some pillowcases so I started browsing fabrics online. I wasn’t able to find exactly what I was looking for, so I waited before buying. Turns out my delay was a good thing…

Our new ceramic stool

When we were in Portland over our spring break we stopped at HomeGoods and picked up some great stuff for our back patio and deck, mainly in search of a ceramic stool to use as a table between the two chairs. I had seen several that I liked online but wanted to spend less than $100. We found this gem for $79. I was pretty indecisive about buying it — I was hoping for something a little more colorful — and Brandon convinced me that this stool was everything that I was looking for. And I do have a pretty neutral color palate, so it was perfect.

Once the stool was picked out, it was time to find pots and pillows to match. Lucky for us, HomeGoods had quite the selection. I found a large rectangular indoor pillow that had a really cool hexagon pattern. They had two of the same pillows: one in teal and one in green. I was debating whether or not to buy them both or just one. I ended up buying the teal one and had a fun Esther sewing party in mind! The pillow was too wide for the Adirondack chair, but cut in half it would be absolutely perfect. Best part about it? It only cost $17. Not too shabby.

Esther: the official sewer of Megan’s Island

Esther and I got together last weekend for our sewing party (she sewed, I brought pastry) and the whole project took just under an hour. At first Esther was skeptical of my ‘cut the pillow in half’ idea, but she’s game for most everything and offered me her best, sharpest scissors.

Cutting and sewing the pillow case was the easiest part. We literally cut it in half, including the zipper and then sewed it back together. The actual feather pillow was a different story. We started off inside and quickly moved out to the deck. Turns out there are a ton of feathers in a feather pillow and cutting a pillow in half creates quite the mess. We grabbed a few garbage bags and started removing some of the feathers, and kept cutting. Here’s a photo mid-way through. We were skeptical of the cut and sew plans and were ready to call this a DIY Fail. It was a particularly windy day and many of the extra feathers literally took flight. It looked like we killed a few birds on the porch.

DIY Fail? Only time would tell

But, we pressed on, pinned the pillows back together, sewed them shut and then put them into the cases. Voila! A miracle! And they look so, so good, don’t you think? One of them even has a fully-functioning zipper!

Final product!

Here’s the final product. I’m ready for that sunset and glass of wine now.

All I need now is a glass of wine and a good book