Muskoka Chairs Stained

I've been working 70 hour weeks, so I haven't been doing much on the house. It was a nice day so I sanded these down, and gave them a coat of Sikkens Cetol. I'll probably give them another coat, not today though. They look good for $50 chairs. I think they're a mixture of pine and some thing tropical. Looks like Phillipines mahogany maybe on the arms. They had some mold and mildew on them from sitting out last summer and fall. We did bring them in for the winter.



Here's my helper posing in front of the chairs. He didn't like sanding much. Seemed to like the staining part better. I didn't want him to end up with it all over him though. He kept me company while I was working. Was nice to spend some time outside, after being couped up in the office all week.

Woodwork Projects 2008

This was the first woodwork project that I completed last year. This made the other 2 projects a lot easier to do. As well as all the other woodworking projects we have planned. I wanted to add an end vice, I haven't done that yet though.

This was the second project of the year, an armoire for Ella's room. It's all made out of pine, we didn't want to spend too much on wood. I was still a lot more than an Ikea one would have cost though, which makes you wonder where Ikea gets it's wood. It's finished with danish oil.

It has shelves on on side and hangers on the other side.

The third project was the table that I made for my mom. It's made of Western Red Cedar, all 2x6's. I finished it with Sikkens Cetol 123.

Here it is on her patio. I'm sure it'll see some use this summer.

The forth project is the outdoor couch. I haven't finished it, it's ready to assemble though. It's too big to assemble in the basement and bring outside. I have to wait until the summer, so I can finish it outside. A friend of ours is going to make the cusions for us. It all Western Red Cedar as well, and we're going to finish it with Sikkens Cetol 123. It's going to be nice to relax on, on our deck next summer (between bouts of stucco removal I'm sure).

Staining

We spent quite a bit of time staining on the weekend. We re-stained the floor and stairs of the deck on Thursday night. It took a long time to dry, I'd say it's just finished drying today. I guess it's because it's a second coat, so it doesn't soak in. We're using Sikkens Cetol SRD, and it's a one coat system, I'd use the Cetol 123 on the handrail if I did it again, it just looks so much better to me. It looks like the colour we were hoping it would be now though. Before staining, we used a wood conditioner, I think I did that on Tuesday night. It's pretty powerful stuff, it took the grey coating right off of the unstained wood, and it looked like paper what was coming off. On Saturday, I stained the fascia boards around the deck, and the railings, it's with the lighter natural stain on the fascia.
On Sunday, I sanded down the fence, just on one side of the fence boards. There was still a lot of tannins even after using the wood prep. We started staining the fence, it was sunny, so we did the north side, moving an umbrella around to keep everything in shade as we put it on. The stain is pretty volatile, so I wore my mask, since I got a headache from the stain the day before. We ran out of stain after almost doing one side of the fence. We're using Sikkens Cetol 123 on the fence, it's a 3 coat system. We used it on the back fence, and it still looks great after 3 years. Probably time to add a coat to it next year, or later in the fall, before the cold, but when the plants have died back.
We should have the fence stained by the end of the week. I was hoping to finish varnishing the beams on the deck, but I couldn't get the energy to sand them, and thought it best not to make dust until all the stain was dry. We should have some more pictures soon.

Summer Fading

I sanded the cap for the railing on the deck last night. Deb and I are both working again, so we didn't get home until after 6. I sanded the railing while she was making dinner, didn't take too long. It wasn't supposed to rain today, so Deb stained the rail after dinner, well it's raining today. Not a surprise, we live in a rain forest, and get more rain than most places in Canada. I think it'll be okay, the instructions say it needs 5 hours until it gets wet, and I don't think it rained until early in the morning. I still need the posts and beams to dry out so I can varnish them. There's the east wall that still isn't primed and painted either. And guess what, forecast calls for rain.

The Deck is Stained

Here's a shot of the railing stained. We treated the deck with bleach and TSP first, then gave it a sanding with 80 grit. It removes the mill glaze, and makes it take the stain more evenly. We used the Sikkens SRD formula Stain, which is only one coat. I think we did 4 coats on the fence, with the Cetol 123, so it was a lot easier than that. Still, it took 11 hours to sand it all down, and for the 2 of us to stain it.



Here's a shot of the landing, the stairs are 4' wide, so they're a little wider than normal.



Here's a shot of the decking stained. Deb did it while I was at work today. It's still a little wet in the picture, so there's a little bit of glare on it. The railing is a colour called Natural, and the decking is Dark Oak. We also got rid of the wall, we like it a lot better. It's louder though, I guess it was blocking sound from the road too. We're going to add some 2x6's along the top, and hang some bamboo blinds, so we can have privacy, when we want it.



The railing cap still has to be donJe, as well as the post lights. We're going to varnish the fir beams below with marine varnish. We still have to find a good one to use for that. Hopefully it'll be all done by the end of this weekend. Then we have to finish the painting, and re-route some of the drainage at the bottom of the stairs.

Deck update

We finished getting the stucco off the back of the house, well the part where the deck is anyways. I'm really glad we got it off before the deck, since the little stones and glass dent the new cedar decking really easily. We have most of the railing posts on, and about 3/4 of the decking down. We have to bring the rest of the decking back, since it's not up to snuff, it's got all kinds of defects. We're laying all the decking bark side out so it doesn't cup (you can tell by looking at the rings on the end of the board). It's taken longer than expected to lay the decking, with the undermount system. I use nails every second joist to space the boards, then I use clamps to hold both ends in postion. Then climb down and screw it all on from underneath. So this morning we're heading back to Sunbury Cedar, to return some of the boards, and get more 4x4's for the posts. We're going to pick up some stain as well, since they carry Sikkens there. We're using the Cetol SRD, in a Mahogany colour for the decking, and the top rail, we're going to use Natural Oak for the rest of the rail, and the risers on the stairs.

The Deck... so far

It seems like so long ago, even though it was only 2 weeks ago that we dug the holes for the posts. You can see the Bigfoot footings in each hole, they're expensive, but they save time.



After levelling the Bigfoot, you screw on the sonotube, then backfill, then you're ready to pour the concrete. Well after making the posts plumb, and securing them in position. It took a long time, setting up all the string lines, and getting everything square to the non-square house.



Remember to keep your string lines, so that you can set your post bases. You want to try and get everything as square are possible at this stage.




Here's the ultra cool lumber truck (that both the kids loved) It has an arm that extends all the way down the driveway. The controls are wireless, so the operator can follow along behind. Way better than the homedepot truck with the forklift, that I had to stop traffic so he could reach the driveway. Way to go Dick's Lumber.







Here's Steve fitting one of the column caps (those things sure aren't cheap). Deb painted them black first, sure glad we did, it would be hard to paint them after, and wouldn't look as good. We spent quite awhile getting the columns plumb, we used Steve's nail guns to set the position.




Here's Steve and I working on one of the beams. The beams were true 6x6's, and the column caps were 5.5" on both ends, so we had to router and chisel out the beams, so they fit. It was messy, Steve did most of the routering.





Here's some pictures of putting the joists in. The longest ones were 18' long and really heavy to lift by yourself. We put a strip of peel and stick on top of the beams to protect them a little more. The posts and beams are fir and they're not pressure treated, we're going to give them a good coating with Sikkens. I had vacation this week, we had a few other things going on, we still got a lot done though.



The cedar comes tomorrow, although so does the rain. We still have to do the stairs and landing. I didn't get enough fir, so I need to get one more post tomorrow. Don't really like going to the lumberyard with the car, but they don't sell 6x6 fir at Homedepot. I got the channels and screws to do the hidden hardware tonight, so I can do that tomorrow, while we wait for the lumber to arrive.



A couple more weeks, and we'll have a nice deck to relax on, we'll need it though. It'll be the last big project of the summer. We'll except for the stucco removal. If you want a really good deck, hire our neighbour Steve, he's a kick ass carpenter.