Deck-adence

This spring, Chris and I agreed to focus on our backyard. It has been a few years since we’ve really put any effort into our backyard area and it was starting to show. Our outdoor furniture had completely rusted out, our deck was sun damaged and splintering, and there were little piles of junk building up in corners of the yard.

The first issue we had to fix was the deck. Because our backyard gets direct sun all day long and has zero shade anywhere, we had really stopped being out there too often, unless we were in the pool. We had even stopped having friends over because it was too darn hot to sit outside. We went back and forth about what kind of covering to put over the deck and what parts to cover. Ultimately, we decided on something called a sail or sometimes called a sun shade (here is the link to ours).

The great thing about these sails are that they block the UV rays and they can be taken down easily for storms and hurricanes. They also don’t need any kind of permit or building structure because they aren’t permanent fixtures to the house, so it saved us all kinds of headache. However, they had some challenges with them. Getting them attached to the house was difficult. We were able to drill into the stucco in two spots, but in the corner, we had trouble finding a spot to anchor them. Same with the poles. Getting the poles to hold all that tension from pulling them so tightly without the poles bending was tricky. Lastly, getting them to line up at exactly the right height and distance was tough, too. I’m not sure I would have gone the sail route if Chris wasn’t so capable. It was definitely harder than it looked!

We ordered two of them online from Amazon, of all places. We hung one over our top deck area, which will eventually be where we put an outdoor dining table and chairs.

And then we put the second, larger one over the lower deck. This is where we put our new deck furniture, too. In order to fit the new furniture, Chris had to take out the benches in our deck (those of you who’ve been around for a while might remember those from when he originally built the deck seven years ago). The saved space from removing the benches gave us room to put our new furniture.

The furniture was our second issue to solve outside. Our other furniture had rotted out last summer and we never replaced it. We found this Broyhill set at Big Lots, of all places, for $500. There is also a center table, but they were out of those here in Orlando, so we are waiting for them to be back in stock in the next few weeks.

The deck itself has been so great to have in the past few weeks, except for all the rain we’ve had! We had one good weekend with it and it has been raining like crazy here ever since! Once the rain clears out in the next week, we will actually paint the deck. I bought a dark stain for the floor and some railings. Then we will paint the top rail and sideboards white. We will also paint the poles for the sails white. Before you can use stain, though, the boards have to be completely dried out, which is really tough in this Florida afternoon rain! But my plants are loving it!

The last thing we did before all this rain started was hang lights up along the sails. They made such a difference!

We’ve always had a really great backyard, mostly due to the pool and the size. But with a little work, we’ve been able to double our space outside and make it so much more useful for this phase in our life. Now, everyone cross your fingers for this rain to pass so we can finish!!!