Check out our deck!

While the house we bought was well taken care of by the gentleman who owned before, there were parts that were just in need of some extreme overhauls. On that list was the back deck. It is kind of a weird deck, because it is on the side of the house, looking one way into the kitchen and the other into the next door neighbours yard. It's not really a place that you would want to sit and enjoy an evening, or have a private conversation. BUT it is a lovely place to barbecue, enjoy some sun/shade in the afternoons, and a great place to access the back yard without having to pass through the back entrance double door system.

And so we decided to repair most of it with cedar. A lot of the platform was rotten, and the railings weren't quite up to code, so we had a few things to fix. We brought it down to its main posts in order to remove all the rotten bits, and put it back together. The boys had painted all the floorboards with sealant in the summer, tore apart and put back together the basics in fall, and finally put up the railings and stairs in spring this year. It was a bit of a lengthy project, but it is almost all done! Now to just stain the deck!

For the railings we were trying to find cheap and beautiful posts, which was proving a bit difficult. One of our favourite spots to get previously used building materials (Home Reusables) had an abundance of glass and we considered the tempered glass, but quite frankly a clear view of the neighbours yard was not really a priority for us. And so we went with my favourite choice (and everyone else agreed!): copper pipes. We had a fair amount of remanent piping from our previous renovations, but not quite enough to finish the deck railing; so we used a mixture of brand new pipes and pre-used ones. It will take a few years for the shiny pipes to catch up to the beautiful patina on the older ones.