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Behr Deck Over – 4 Years Later

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I just looked up how many years it has been since our deck makeover with Behr Deck Over.  I first posted about Behr Deck Over in July of 2013.  In case you are interested, here’s the first post. It’s been 4 years and our deck is just now starting to show some wear.  We live in the Seattle area and, if you haven’t heard, it rains a lot here.  We jokingly say that Summer starts on July 5th because it’s been known to rain on the day that we’d all like to be out at a family BBQ.  Once the weather takes a turn for the better, we usually have a pretty nice summer!  That doesn’t mean that every single day is clear skies and sunshine, but if it’s not raining you can find most of us outside.  Our deck gets a lot of use in the summer and we need a product that will hold up to dog and teenage party traffic. Here’s the link to the second post about Behr Deck Over, if you are interested.

Deck

Here is our deck in 2013, when we had just pressure washed it.

deck before

And here is our deck after painting Behr Deck Over onto it.

deck with Behr Deck Over

You can see that there is a lot of space, which meant a lot of painting, and also meant that we didn’t want to tackle this project every summer.

Deck After Behr Deck Over with Furniture

For the past few summers I’ve given the deck a light scrub with a push broom, some outdoor cleaner, and a hose.  It’s worked great to get the pollen and green gunk off of the boards.  The Deck Over held up perfectly!

Deck After Behr Deck Over Side View

So, here we are in 2018.  I just had a stroke and the deck is finally showing some wear.  This needs to be the summer of Behr Deck Over Round 2.  Unfortunately, I have been on a strict “do nothing” routine prescribed by my doctor.  No repetitive movements like painting or exertion of any type that might hinder healing in my artery.  Fortunately, for me, my kids were my chief workers with Behr Deck Over Round 1.  At that time, they were 9 and 13.  Fast forward 4 years and my kids are even better workers at 13 and 17.  I’ll just sit in a chair in the grass and tell them when they miss a spot.

Seriously, friends, this is my happy place in the summer.  Once the dry weather hits you’ll find me in the corner of that couch with the fire going and the heater on full blast.  (I said it gets dry here, but most days aren’t too warm.)  I plan to use Behr Deck Over again and I’m hoping they have the same color.  I want to say the name either had something to do with chocolate or coffee.  It was the perfect color.  Our house is a light gray with white trim.  Although I love the look of a white deck, that’s not the best idea when you have kids, a dog, and green blecky stuff that seems to grow on everything around here.

IMG_9032

It’s Behr Deck Over for the win!  Happy painting!

Behr Deckover Update – Over One Year Later

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About twice a month I receive an email from someone about my deck makeover.  It’s usually someone who has done a google search and wound up at my blog.  They read my post about painting our deck and then email to see if we are still happy with the product.  Let me start by saying that I have no connection with Home Depot or Behr products.  We simply needed to do something about our aging deck and I decided to blog about the process.  
So, are will still happy?
Absolutely!  I would do it all over again in a heartbeat!  I love the chocolate brown color.  I think our color was called Coffee.  It is the perfect color to compliment our house and it has held up MUCH better than I expected.  It was starting to look a little dirty after the long Winter and Spring, so I decided to pressure wash it in May.  I really expected some chipping of paint, but it never happened once!  I was kind of impressed!
(Isn’t this area just screaming for a cute outdoor rug?  If only I didn’t live in the wet, wet, wet, Pacific Northwest!)
There were two boards that needed to be replaced before we painted the deck.  We replaced the boards and painted right over them.  I had read that the Deckover product doesn’t take to new wood very well, and this little area shows that it is true.  There is a very small area that is starting to bubble a bit on the new boards. This section is so small that it doesn’t bother me at all.

I’m still impressed with the product because, even though that one area is bubbling, our deck is huge and there is only one tiny area that is having any sort of problem.

Ok, this is where we need to talk about one more little deck problem.  Please note that the problem has nothing to do with the product.  Do you see those gray-ish marks on my deck?  Well, there are a few of those on my deck now.  I scrubbed it today, to see if the marks would come off, but I was out of luck.

Last week (in our 90 degree heat) my hubby and kids built this little grilling patio off of the deck.  It’s a great little space that seems meant to have a grill (or two) ready for a BBQ.  Well, to set the pavers you need a special sand that will stick everything together like concrete when wet.  There was lots of sweeping, tapping, and watering going on, but we didn’t really think about how the special sand would affect the deck.
Not only did we walk on the deck, but there are LOTS of paw prints all over.
(By the way, what sort of step would you put right there?  It needs one.)

This guy seems to be the culprit when it comes to paw prints all over my deck.  

“Sorry, Mom.  I’m really, really sorry.  I’ll just stay right here on the grass.  And then maybe roll over for a tummy rub.”
I hope that answers a few questions about how we are liking our deck!  Yes, I’d do it all over again!  I’d choose the same color too, except this time I would be more careful about paw prints with sand/concrete that won’t wash off.  Oops!
Happy painting!

The Deck Makeover with Behr DeckOver

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The deck in our backyard has needed a makeover since we moved into our house almost 9 years ago.  The size of the deck is great and the stain was probably beautiful at some point in the past.  Over the years of rain, kids, wear, and dogs, it has seen better days.  The deck itself is in fairly good shape, with just a few boards that needed replacing, but the stain really needed some TLC.  We have a fairly large deck.  The photo below only shows a portion of it.  The deck also wraps around the back of the house.  It’s a lot of space, and I’ve always been reluctant to tackle it.  Well, when the weather man called for a full week of dry weather, I knew I had to jump on it!

We started by pressure washing the whole thing and replacing a few boards.

Side story:
My sister owns the truck in the family, so whenever I need dirt, sod, lumber, or furniture, I call her.  So, after her run one day, she stopped by to pick me up and take me to our local lumber store.  As we were standing in line, the man in front of us finished up his order and the salesperson said, “It’s just so refreshing when someone actually knows how to order lumber.”  At that point we both burst out laughing! You can only image how unimpressed he was with us! Oh, and we had to go back twice because I ordered the wrong thing the first time. My sister’s such a good sport!

Back to the deck:
Once it was clean and pressure washed, we had to wait a few days for it to dry out.


(Cooper is always trying to photobomb my pictures!)

We used a new product called Behr DeckOver.  Hindsight, I wish I would have contacted Behr first and asked if they’d like to sponsor this little project.  It has been the talk of the cul-de-sac and also the talk of my recent backyard party.  It seems everyone is ready for a little deck update and they are all very interested in my opinions of this product.  Oh, well.  Hind sight is always 20/20.  So, for this project we started with 4 cans of DeckOver, which I thought would be plenty.  Turns out we needed 6 cans.  It was $34 per can at Home Depot, with a $5 rebate per can. 

We started with all of the hard parts like benches, skirting on the deck, and underneath the benches.  Then we moved on to cracks and crevices.  You can actually use the DeckOver to fill in cracks, which is pretty cool.  It’s also pretty time consuming, so I didn’t do too many areas.  Once we started with the rolling, it went pretty quickly.  We ended up doing three coats because after the second coat, when I was touching up a few spots, the paint didn’t dry evenly and it really bugged my hubby.  I think I could have lived with it, but I know it would have driven him nuts.  Yes, I love him enough to re-roll the entire thing!  It took several more hours, but I think it looks great.

Here’s the deck with the outdoor furniture on it.

We’re ready for a party!
By the way, it comes in 54 colors.  This one looked the best with our house color and furniture.  It’s called Coffee.

Whew!  That was a big job.  I think my deck chairs are calling my name.


I’ll let you know how DeckOver holds up to dogs, kids, and parties.  For now, I’ll be resting and nursing my injuries on the new deck.

One more side story:
Apparently pressure washers get really hot, and I have two large burns on my leg to prove it.  I also have multiple blisters from spending so much time with a roller and paint brush in my hand.  Oh, and I fell in the window when I was trying to get off the roof after washing the skylights.  I had to wash the skylight before I painted the deck because I didn’t want to get the new deck wet and dirty.  There you have it.  That’s why I’ll be on the deck chairs nursing my injuries.

Happy painting!
 

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Deck Makeover

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As my sister says, “It’s almost time to quit whining about the rain and start whining about the heat!”  Steve Pool (our local weatherman) told us that today will be the last day of rain for a while.  Then we’re ready for summer!  It’s supposed to be in the 80’s for at least a week, after today.  A dry deck means I can get a little work done!

I started pressure washing yesterday afternoon.  Luckily my kids love to help.

 


Lucky for me, they are good little workers. 

We pressure washed all of the benches, nooks, crannies, skirting on the deck, and the long walkway.  All that was left, when my hubby got home, was to move the furniture, repair a board, and finish the main part of the deck.  He’s such a good sport!  He got right to work after dinner.  I’d say that Cooper was a good helper too, but that spot he’s sitting in is actually the bald patch where we just planted new grass seed.  Thanks Cooper.

The herb pot, just outside my kitchen window, didn’t exactly want to be moved.  It fell apart as soon as we pulled it away from the house.  I replanted the herbs and now I’ll have to find new pots for my kitchen garden/herbs.

  Ooooh… there’s my little pressure washer in the corner of the picture below.  It was a gift from my hubby.  Yes, you read that right.  I told him my Mother’s Day wishlist included a hanging basket, rolling compost bin, or pressure washer.  I also told him he could choose the gift and I would be able to tell how much he loved me based on the gift.  He chose the right gift.  He loves me!  Realistically, we REALLY needed this and my hubby always asks for Costco gift cards for his birthday.  He has every intention of buying himself a pressure washer or some fun new tool, but when it comes down to it, he usually buys chicken or toilet paper with his gift cards. It was needed at our house and having a clean, pressure washed, house makes me really, really, really happy. 


Now, back to that project.  So, I got the whole family helping and then I took off to find my camera.  (That’s the way I roll.)

I caught this little guy relaxing in the grass.

He gets a little concerned when we do projects like this and I think he was just feeling sorry for himself out in the yard.

We finished up around 8:30 last night.  The deck is clean and just needs to dry.  Hopefully it will stop raining soon.  We’ll give it 2 days to dry and then we’ll give it a fresh new look.  We’re using a new Behr product called DeckOver, from Home Depot.  It’s fairly new, so there weren’t a lot of reviews out there.  We’re going to give it a try!  I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Happy pressure washing!
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