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.

Odds and ends

I had a five day long weekend, so we got a lot of little things done on the fence and the deck. I built a jig to put the post caps on with dowels. The post cap fits on one side of the jig, and the post on the other, so the holes line up perfectly. We'll see how well the dowels hold on the caps, I wasn't too impressed with how nails hold them on. I used waterproof glue, so we'll see how it holds with 4 dowels. I finished the small section adjoining the fence at the side yard, I had a hard time with the pocket holes, because I couldn't get the drill in there, because the space was so small. I filled some of the pocket holes with Plastic Wood filler, I've been told filler doesn't work so good on exterior wood, that it just pops out, I guess time will tell. I was looking for a 2 part epoxy filler, but I couldn't find any.
On the deck, I finished putting on the fascia boards, they were missing on 2 sides. I redid one of the railings as well. I cut the angle wrong for the transition. I thought any angle would work, as long the other angle made up the difference. We'll you need to bisect the angle (divide it equally). I used a compass to do that, remembering some of the geometry that I learned in high school. It worked out perfectly. There's a small 4" piece of railing at the bottom, I doweled that as well. There's another railing I'm not happy with, that I'm going to replace. We added an arbour to one side of the deck as well. I built it out of 2 2x6's 11'-5" long. I screwed the pieces together first, then slipped it over the posts. Deb was going to help me, but I ended up doing it myself. It's all held on with lag bolts, and looks a lot better. We can't decide whether to have bamboo blinds for privacy, or to put hanging baskets there.

Even with 5 days off, I didn't have time to do it, well we were busy relaxing as well. I did a few coats of varnish on the fir posts as well, they're starting to look really nice. I still need to finish sanding the beams, I should have done it before putting them up. It's a lot more difficult with them up in the air. A few hours with the belt and orbital sander should do it. We'll need another litre of varnish though. We're going to re-stain the deck, then it'll be done.
We're going to be moving on to stucco removal, and the small 5x5 porch that the deck is connected to. I still have to research the options, it's such a small area, that I don't really want to hire someone to do a torch-on. I'm thinking epdm rubber, but I have to find a place to buy it, and all the connecting pieces. It doesn't seem very straight forward. Will have some more pictures of the deck and fence, once they're stained.

The Fence Day 3 and 4 - a pair of strappy hinges

Here's the fence so far, I finished putting on the rest of the stats during the week, it only took a couple hours. I kept the template for the curve from the back fence, it's just an old piece of OSB plywood, with a 10' radius cut in it. It worked well on the longer spans, it doesn't quite look right on the shorter spans though.



Here I am putting on the gate. I tried putting it on earlier, only it was 8" too small. I made it 42" instead of 4'-2" and I had it all sanded, the curve on the top cut and ready to hang this morning. So I had to take it apart, I broke a couple slats taking it apart, plus there were already holes from nailing them on. I decided to use screws instead of the casing nails, since it's a gate and it gets more abuse than the rest of the fence.



Here's a picture of the "strappy hinges". They're 36" wide, and I used 1/4" lag bolts to attach them. There's 6 - 2" screws holding each hinge to the post. The gate is 50" wide, so it needs something, or it's going to sag. The posts don't seem to be quite as stong as I hoped, maybe I should have had 4 posts for the arbour, we'll see how it last, I might have to add more concrete around the sonotubes or something.



Next was the latch, it went on without a lot of problem. It seems like a heavy duty latch, we'll see how it lasts. We put a spring closer on it too, so it doesn't get left open. We still have to do the post caps, and there's a small section to close in against he existing fence. We're going to wait probably a month, before we stain the fence, it's still really wet the wood, it's soaking wet when I drill in to it.



Here's a picture of the old douglas fir table that I stripped, and stained. It looks a lot more glossy in real life. I've been working on the cedar couch as well, hopefully a couple more weeks and it'll be done. Well, not the cushions, since we haven't ordered the outdoor fabric for them yet. Now the fence is there, we're going to start working on the front of the house. I bought new clapboard for the one side, for some reason, it's been removed on one side behind the stone. The stone has been redone on that side too (it's a lot better job too). I think there was an oil tank in the basement, maybe some oil leaked around that side of house, it's been reframed, and the sheathing is new too, as well as the stonework being new. There's a pipe that comes out at the bottom of the wall too, so probably something to do with the oil, seems really low for filling the oil though. We're going coat the foundation wall and finish the draintile around the front. We'd like to redo the pipe to the water main as well, since it's galvanized, and mostly plugged with rust as well, looks like we have our work cut out for us.

Fence Day Two

We got quite a bit done on the fence yesterday. All the cross pieces are on. I figured out all the spacing for the pickets, we're using 1x3's and 1x4's alternating. We're going to cut an arc in the pickets, once they're all on. Right now, the tops of the pickets don't line up.



It was nice and sunny here yesterday, and the fence is on the south side, so we moved the umbrella to the front. There are only 2 sections left that need pickets, plus we have to built a filler piece against the neighbour's fence. We're not doing one section right now, since we have to remove the stucco off the front of the house, and do the drainage at the front. And then there's the gate to build, so there's probably another days work, and then it'll be ready for stain. I was going to finish the pickets tonight, but I'm taking the night off. Good thing I ordered some extra wood, some of it isn't useable, it's been written on and some of it is so old, it's grey. I'll be returning those pieces, I don't know if they'll believe that it wasn't me that wrote on it.

Fence Day One

Well, I guess it's not exactly day one, since we did the footings last weekend and last week. We did the arbour first, it's going to be a wide gate, it's over 4' wide. I like the steel brackets so far, seems easier than setting the posts in concrete, and keeping them plumb. We'll see if they stay plumb over time. I put a shim under each post to raise it off the ground, so the post doesn't suck up water from the concrete. On the cross pieces, I used my pocket hole jig to drill the holes. The top pieces are screwed from underneath, the bottoms are from the top, so I probably should use some epoxy to fill the holes.




All the posts are in now, so hopefully we can do all the cross pieces and the slats tomorrow. It will take a while to figure out the spacing of the slats, since I'm using 1x4's and 1x3's. I don't know if we'll get the gate done tomorrow, could probably get the rest done. We got these anti-sag hinges for the gate, the straps on them are 3' wide, we'll see how they do with the over 4' wide gate. It's kind of annoying working in the front yard, feels like you're on display, everyone that walks or drives by checks out what you're doing. Other parents at the kids school keep asking Deb what we're doing to the front yard, seems pretty obvious to us. Nice to do a project that's almost done in a weekend.

Still plugging away

These are the new Muskoka (Adirondack for Americans) that we got about a month ago. I'm building an outdoor couch out of cedar, but we just didn't want to wait any longer to enjoy the deck. The chairs are made out of some kind of wood, I just know it isn't pine, or any other wood that's familiar to me. They're made in China, so the wood is either tropical, or from Russia. I've heard bad things about wood from both of these places. We have them now though, so we'll make them last as long as possible. They're really comfortable, and once we stain them, they'll look even better. We also stripped an old Douglas Fir table that we picked up a while ago, it has 3 coats of Sikkens stain on it, and looks really nice, we'll post pictures of that soon. As you can see, the wall behind the chairs still has nails in it, I've removed and patched most of the wall (it was covered in stucco last year). We were going to put french doors in there this year, we're going to wait until next year though, that way we can save up for the ones we want. So we'll pull the rest of the nails, fill the holes, scrape, prime and paint for this year.



Deb started removing the front lawn, with the sod lifter we got from Lee Valley (it's difficult to use, but works better than just a shovel, we could have rented a gas one, but I'd rather not). We've been transplanting the grass to the back, the healthier parts without the weeds. So I decided to start on the fence for the front. The fence is going to be similar to the one we did in the back along the retaining wall. We used a combination of pressure treated and cedar on the back, we're going all cedar on the front one. We're going to use metal brackets that are designed for fences, so the posts will be all above ground. The brackets come up about 6", and take 2 lag bolts. I used 6" sonotubes, although I think 8" would have been better. We're getting the cedar this week, and I just finished the last 2 brackets last night. Hopefully the concrete will have cured enough by then. I need to pack the dirt a little more around the posts themselves. I didn't do the one closest to the house either, since we still have to do the drainage there, as well as pull off the stucco and the stone. We are going to replace the main water supply as well, since it's still galvanized, and probably almost clogged with rust. We found the shut off buried, when we removed the grass at the front. There is a one foot setback from the sidewalk, although some of the houses have built right to the sidewalk. We're going to put a boxwood hedge by the sidewalk.



Here you can see the string line, and assorted Tonka vehicles in the background. So we should have some fence pictures by Monday. We're also getting the wood we need to complete the deck. We still need to figure out how to do the back existing porch though, I don't want to do torch-on, since it's too dangerous to do yourself. We're thinking EPDM, although I don't know where to buy it yet.