Laundry Room Deck - Page 2

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The deck project has reached a bit of a milestone, the finish is completed on the deck surface and the sides as well. The weather has turned cool so it is a relief to have the painting done before it got too cold to get it applied. The finish on the deck surface is a product called Concerete Restore, a product we sell at Kramer Hardware. This is a real unique product, it is a very thick latex product that has fine sand as part of its formulation. It is rolled onto the surface with a special roller cover that leaves a very thick textured surface. Two coats are required and we got the second coat on today.

The sides of the deck have a coat of primer and two coats of flat house paint that matches the stain color of the siding. The next project is to get the house siding trim back on, install the stair treads, and begin work on the railings.

The deck is nearly finished. We have all the paint and stain completed, which is a good thing because the cool weather makes painting a bit of gamble from this point on. The landscaping is in although the lighting you see is not wired beyond entry into the crawl space. The post covers are made of rough sawn pine with cedar caps. I mounted the post covers on small pieces of pressure treated material so that they never come in contact with water from the deck surface.

From this angle you can see the stair treads, which are made of composite deck material. This is a plastic and wood fiber based product that never needs paint or stain. We were able to pick this up from the neighbors who had extra after I built their deck last year at this time.

After a trip to Utah and California we returned home with the goal of finishing the deck before the end of October, and we made it! The hand rails were ready to install before we left so it only took a couple hours to cut the 1-1/2 EMT (electrical conduit) to length and hang it in the cedar brackets that we had completed prior to leaving for vacation. The brackets are removable so when we restain the deck in the future we do not need to cut around the conduit, which is not painted.

On the very last day of October we finished the deck by trimming out the bottoms of the posts. The base strips were cut and stained in advance of installing them to avoid needing to finish them now that the weather has turned cold. The final step was to install the deck lighting, which are the cup shaped metal fixtures mounted on 4 of the posts. These are low voltage fixtures with 7-watt lamps that come on with the rest of our outdoor lighting. This completes the deck project, so now all we need to do is wiat until spring to place a couple chairs on it and enjoy the view from our deck.