Sage – Author at Plaster & Disaster

If you follow us on Instagram, you may have seen that this past weekend I tackled my last big outdoor project of the year: staining our new deck!

As you’ll recall, we had a new deck built this past spring on top of our old brick patio (and we hired a pro to do it rather than doing it ourselves, as we wanted to spend the summer doing other outdoor projects not laboring over this one).

Then I built some screening around the concrete foundation and AC unit, and a large planter to block the crawlspace doors (which we don’t need to be able to access, as there’s another set on the other side).

I stained them all a very dark black/brown, as I knew that I also planned to stain the deck a dark color. However, it’s important to wait before staining a new pressure treated deck to allow the boards to fully dry out. Everything I read suggested I wait 6 months or even a full year. I knew I didn’t want to wait through the winter because I thought that would require a lot more prep by then to deal with winter wear-and-tear, but I was patient and waited until as late in the fall as I thought was safe (because you don’t want to stain in cold weather either, and the end of October into November can get dicey in New England).

This past weekend we had really nice weather and a decent window without rain, so I knew it was time to get to work! I was nervous because I wasn’t sure how much of an undertaking it might be, and I was also having trouble picking out a stain and color. Fortunately it turned out to be pretty straightforward, and I picked a product that got pretty good reviews.

I decided to go with Olympic Maximum Stain + Sealant, in the Semi-Transparent finish.

I thought about a solid finish as it tends to last a bit longer (the clearer the stain, the faster it succumbs to the elements), but I do like the idea of a little wood grain showing through. Ultimately it only took me a few hours to stain our deck because it’s so small (and there are no railings), so I don’t mind the idea of restaining it in a few years and I’m glad I went for semi-transparent (we’ll see how I’m feeling when the day comes that I actually have to redo it…).

Picking a color was the next hurdle. A lot of decks seem to be done in a lighter color, either wood-toned or something different like gray. However, I’d always imagined our deck as a dark brown/black, because I thought that would contrast nicely against our gray/tan house and be a nice backdrop for colorful outdoor furniture and accessories. It was so hard to tell from the swatches how the color would actually turn out on wood, though. Here are just a few of the options, and you can see that it’s tough to visualize how it will look with wood grain showing through.

I finally decided to go with Black Oak, which is in the middle row in the grid above. I hoped it would be a dark color that pulled more black than medium brown. My deck is about 300 square feet, so I bought a single gallon hoping that would be enough based on the coverage specs on the can (which says it covers 250 – 350 square feet).

Other than the stain, my only other necessary supplies were a paint roller pole (which screws onto the end of a standard paint roller to make it easier to paint low/high spots), a roller with a 3/4″ nap (for rough surfaces), and a 2.5″ angled brush (to get into the cracks between boards).

The prep was pretty straightforward. First I cleaned the furniture and planter off the deck, and I also removed the bottom row of boards along the back screening so that I could reach all the way to the back edge of the deck easily.

I just piled everything on the lawn for the time being.

Next I gave the deck a good sweeping. The cleaning step would have been more involved if the deck were older or if I were restaining it (pressure washing, stripping old stain, sanding, etc), but since the deck is just 6 months old, it’s still quite clean and most of the grime you see in the above photo come off with a good sweeping (though the outline from where the rug prevented the wood from fading didn’t go away completely — but I knew the stain would even things out).

Then I got to work! It was pretty straightforward — I just rolled on a thin and even coat, working just a few boards at a time.

I found that it worked best for me to roll three boards at a time. Then I had to do what’s called “back brushing,” which involved using my angled paintbrush to do two things: 1) go back over the rolled portions to even out and brush away any pooling (you don’t want to leave pools of stain on the surface), and 2) get the cracks between the boards.

You can see how the cracks were super visible until I brushed between the boards — this photo shows where I’d already gone back through with my brush (bottom few boards) and where I hadn’t (middle few boards).

The reason for only rolling 3 boards at a time before back brushing was to ensure the stain hadn’t yet started to dry, and because it would have been hard to reach much further (because I was standing on the unstained deck reaching over the stained board, and I could only comfortably reach across 3 of them).

The rolling was really fast and easy, but the back brushing definitely took some effort and wasn’t so kind to my back and knees. Fortunately this part will be a lot easier if we need to restain in the future, because the cracks are unlikely to get too weathered and need as much thorough attention as this first time.

The whole thing took me about 3.5 hours.

I was pretty pleased with how it looked when I was done!

I let it dry for 24 hours (per product recommendations), and then put the screening boards, planter, and furniture back. Before I show you how it looks now, let’s just remember what this space looked like when we bought the house:

And here’s how it’s looking now!

I do want to paint the concrete footings that the deck rests on and obviously there’s a lot more to do with landscaping (filling the planter, etc) and furniture/accessories, but I’m considering this space done for the season! With these structural elements taken care of, I’m excited for more decorating to brighten up the space come next spring.

And since this is the last outside project of the year, here’s a recap of everything else we took on:

We always like bringing you guys in on our favorite “DIY games,” whether that is trying to figure out whether stuff we see on craigslist is great or terrible, predicting how much weird stuff should cost at a flea market like Brimfield, or just griping about everything that’s wrong with our houses. However, we were out looking at stuff at a consignment store the other day and realized that we haven’t yet involved you in one of our most common and most simple games: discussing whether the stuff we see at a consignment store is a good deal or not.

Consignment stores are tricky, stuffed as they are with painted serving platters and blocky wood tables made in the 1990s. If you’re used to flea markets and thrift stores, its easy to be seduced by the plethora of reasonably clean, reasonably sturdy, and reasonably priced items. But we’re not after reasonable: we’re after awesome pieces and great deals.

We thought it would be fun if you helped us spot them! We’ve collected a variety of pieces at different price points – give us your opinion on which are the best deals at the price:

If you had $25 to spend at a consignment store…

If you had $25 to spend at this particular consignment store, you could buy a lot. Consignment stores are built on the $25 price point! One of the first deals we noticed was this cool wooden piece, billed as a planter but probably good for holding blankets or magazines in a living room.

You could also get a really nice chair – sturdy, clean, and with a modern style that would fit in with a lot of different tastes. This would be good at a desk or as an extra chair in the living room.

You could also get these adorable elephant book ends. Brass animals never go out of style!

Finally, and we feel bad even including it since it is obviously a STEAL and will throw off the voting, you could get this demonic Nixon statue. Just in time for Halloween!

So what would you buy?

If you had $80 to spend at a consignment store…

$80 doesn’t sound like the most obvious price point for us to pick, but there were some amazing deals! For example, you could get this little side-table/chest, with beautiful wood, nice metal details, and tons of storage.

There was also this simple but good quality side table, with that MCM style that is so popular.

Finally, you could get this intricate wall lamp, which could probably be sold by anthropologie for like $1500.

So what would you buy with $80?

If you had $150 to spend at a consignment store…

Getting into more serious prices, you can start getting some serious stuff, like this media cabinet/bookshelf. It has simple lines and a vaguely MCM vibe, and the dark glass would be great for keeping unsightly things like a small TV out of sight when not in use.

You could also get these high quality office cabinets, with room for supplies and files. They’d be great for kids/teens, but also look great in a modern grown-up office.

Speaking of stuff that would be great for both adults or kids, this vanity has real mother-of-pearl inlay in a sweet pattern. How adorable for a little kid’s room, and $150 isn’t that much for such a substantial piece!

Finally, you could have a lamp made out of cardboard. OK, that doesn’t sound awesome, but it clearly is.

So what would you buy?

If you had $250 to spend at a consignment store…

$250 will go a really, really long way at a store like this, even getting you this attractive and clean looking sofa. It would look great in a living room, but is also causal enough to work for a porch or a sunroom. And does its style remind you of anything that the tiny bloggers may have made lately?

(We checked, and the cushions weren’t made out of wood… I guess we’re still waiting for that trend to catch on #looksovercomfort.)

You could also get this intricately carved and freshly reupholstered chair. We’re not sure we would have picked that exact fabric, but its awesome in a more-is-more kind of way.

This glass bookshelf was also available, with beautiful old wood and great storage. The cloth would easily come off, and the glass could either be kept clear or frosted. It has a similar feel to those barrister bookcases, but at a price a reasonable person can actually afford!

So what would you buy?

If you had $300 to spend at a consignment store…

Finally, with $300 to spend, you’re the elite 1% of consignment store shoppers and the best stuff is available to you. You could get a sleek, mod, teal chair, which would have looked awesome in Sage’s living room if she had that kind of money to spend that day.

You could also get a display table with beautiful wood grain that folds out into a desk with hidden storage. How cool is that?

Which would you buy?

So what did we think was the best deal? Did we actually buy anything?

There were a lot of tempting pieces (like that woven lamp and glass covered bookself), but if you know us at all, you’d easily be able to predict that the elephant bookends came right home with us.

What do you think? Did you agree with the consensus, or feel way off? Were you picking on personal style or what you thought was the best objective deal?