Decorating The Deck

Once the work was done on the deck, I started looking around for some seaside accents.  The budget for deck decor was zero.  That actually made the whole thing more fun!

The wharf theme was started with the blocks of wood that became pier posts. ~

That was as simple as staining them a light shade of grey to cover the Wolmanized green and twisting a few strands of hay bale twine to look like rope.  Now, I need to find a Pelican to sit on a one of them!

A little fountain, bought for $2 at the Salvation Army, leaked like a sieve and was turned into a planter.  It sits on a $2 plant stand.  I had both kicking around so we're still within the zero budget. ~

My sister bought the patio table years ago for $3 and had left it with me.  Years of being out in the weather left it in sorry shape! ~

A coat of deck stain, in Great Lakes Blue, made it a little more presentable.  I was tossing around ideas of hand painting a compass on the top when my sister showed up with this print. ~

The spaces between the boards presented a problem but she figured I could just cut strips of the print to fit.  I glued it to the top with exterior Modpodge and gave it another coat on top.  I think I'll spray it with exterior Varathane to give it a little more durability. ~

Here she is done and everyone who has seen it in person, loves it! ~

This deck area is private except for one line of sight through to a neighbour's fire pit.  I was looking around for something to use as a screen and remembered an old wooden door I had pulled out of the dumpster at my rental reno.  See, it pays to dive in your own dumpster! This door has seen better days, to be sure, but it reminded me of the the old doors on bait shacks at fishing camps.

It got screwed onto the side of the upper deck. ~

Some donated dragonfly hooks are added. ~

Man, I love the patina on that door!  In the antique trade, it's called alligatoring. Actually, after a week of staining outbuildings at my rental and using Var sol for hand cream, that's what my hands look like.  They have nice patina!

It's now a great place to hang beach towels and bags! ~

This project, start to finish, took three days and under $200!  It was done just in time for my nephew to arrive with his kids for a day of fun in the river. ~

Now I can sit back and relax!


I'm sharing this with:
Open House Thursday, Sunday's Best Par.tay, Hot Fun In The Summertime Blog Party, Inspire Me Monday, It Pays To Be Cheap Contest, Nifty Thrifty Tuesday, Creative Things Thursday, Potpourri Friday, Feathered Nest Friday, Fantabulous Friday, Rustic Restorations, Saturday Nite Special

Reviving A Deck On The Cheap!

After I finished working on the rental property redo, I planned on taking it easy.  I wanted to sit by the river and let the world flow by.  I did that for exactly two hours! As much as I like to have the river front look natural,  my deck was an unsightly mess!

It was a hodgepodge of the original deck and one I had the patio installer guys move back here with their Bobcat.  They cut it, moved it and plunked the two pieces down. ~

The old deck was stained brown and the other pieces were light blue.  Sorry, I started to stain before I remembered to take a pic.

The light blue deck was in some serious trouble!  It had been through a tornado and came out on the short end of that!  Here's how she looked before they moved her. ~

I think I only had about six readers when I wrote about the yard devastation, so you might want to catch up on that tale here.  You should save all your good stories until you have at least a dozen readers!

Now, I think I've mentioned a few hundred times that I'm a little skint for cash right now, so this spruce up has to be done on the cheap!

I paid two neighbouring teenage boys $70 to move all the pieces of deck together and level them out.  I should have paid them danger pay for the nest of bees they uncovered!

It took two gallons of stain, at $25.99 each, in a colour called Great Lakes Blue to unify the pieces. ~

I had to buy a few 2X4's to replace twisted boards. ~

The existing furniture were some of the most disreputable pieces you've ever seen! ~

Well, we all know you can fix that! I roped my sister into painting the chaise lounges and the chairs with some latex paint in BM mayonnaise.  I already had the paint, so no cost there.  Hey, I'm putting in boards and staining decks! ~

The cedar table got a coat of stain and an interesting decoration.  I'll tell about adding the picture in the next post. So far, we are free on the furniture! ~

My sister and I like to sit back here and read magazines.  Because we were interior designers, we called that part of our job. Somebody has to do it!  Since she's allergic to bees and I'm not wild about mosquitoes eating me alive, we needed a screened in area.  Gazebos don't survive the wind that comes off the river in stormy weather but kitchen tents will.  The cheapest I could find was $45.00 at Canadian Tire.  It just happened to be a good match for the Great Lakes Blue! ~

And, those hunks of wood I told you to keep your eye on?  They are the tops of guard rail posts that get cut off after the rails are installed.  My brother in law brought them to me years ago. ~  

A coat of light grey stain, some twine from hay bails twisted to look like rope and they become wharf pilings! ~

This is what was accomplished in two days.  I need to close in the area between the two decks to cover the supporting posts and the stairs to the dock need a coat of Tremclad but I now feel like I can honestly say ... ~

Oh, and the total cost with labour, materials and tent was under $200.00!!!

Next comes the fun part - the decorating!!!

I'm sharing this with:

Sunny Simple Sundays, Funky Junks Saturday Nite Special, Make It Pretty Monday

Inside The Rental Reno

Roughly forty gallons of paint and stain, 2 1/2 tons in the dumpster (it will take a lot for me to erase this carbon footprint!), hardwood and tile, drywall and plaster, taps, sinks, toilets and showers, light fixtures, three months of manual labour, blood (literally), sweat (again literally) and tears (even more literally!) and we are done!!!  If you missed the beginning of the story click here.

The living room is done! ~

The kitchen is done! ~ 

The bathrooms are done! ~

The bedrooms are done! ~

The upper hallway is done and the beams are restored! ~

Mint green becomes aged wood.

Look at the view the purchaser will have from the master bedroom! ~

Hey isn't that Wendy from Herballistic Garden's front yard?  Sure it is.  I'd recognize that secret door anywhere!

Walk a couple of doors to the left, just past the little white church, and you are at my house.  Maybe the buyer will be a blogger and we'll have the most bloggers per capita of anywhere!  This teeny village NEEDS  another blogger, don't you think?

They can join us for tea or wine, campfires and river gazing.

Just don't ask me to help you paint, repair, carry or build anything.  Well, at least not for a week or so!

The Rental Property Is Finished!

From April until now, the all consuming thing in my life has been renovating a rental property that I own with my brother and sister.  Like all century buildings, one job leads to a dozen more and the project snowballed to a complete gut on some rooms.  My siblings, their spouses and myself are pretty worn out and so very happy to pack up the paint brushes, cleaning rags, saws and hammers!

I'll take final photos of the inside this weekend to show you that I haven't been slacking off, when my posts became sporadic, these last couple of months.

I will give you a peak at what we did for the outside.  We didn't want to spend a lot of money on the old garage and shed but they definitely needed to look a little more presentable.  Getting rid of the garbage the tenant left behind was a good start.

Here's the scary before pic of the shed! ~

The broken window was replaced with glass from an old window.  A few missing boards were replaced and a couple of gallons of stain were applied.  We switched out the old door with one we had replaced a year ago in the main building.  Then, we three ladies in the work crew set out to pretty it up.


Here's what a little ingenuity and some elbow grease can do! ~

The gates from the broken arbour became shutters.  A pile of bricks were arranged to form a planter.  Some white washed, clay pots brighten the window and some little pots of flowers set on the old rail road ties add a bit of rustic charm.

The garage soaked up another five gallons of stain.  It's the original barn from the 1800's and that wood is mighty porous!

There's a half acre of grounds that hadn't been kept up when the tenant was here, but it's coming back nicely with some love and attention.

When we bought the property from Mom's estate two years ago, we had all the windows and doors replaced and painted the exterior ourselves.  I give all the credit for painting the second story to my brother and sister in law.  It's a really tall building and there was no way I was going up on that extension ladder!

The retail space is at the front of the building and all it needed was some colour added with pretty planters full of flowers.  All the planters came from our own stashes so the only costs were in the flowers.  ~

So, that's the easy part of what we did.  The tough stuff was inside!

Thanks, readers, for hanging in there with me!  

A Little Help From The Grandkids

I had all the grandchildren here on the weekend.  They range in age from one to eighteen and it's wonderful to see how well they all get along.  The older kids are very kind to the little tykes.  The little ones worship look up to the older ones.

 Baby is still fascinated with serving tea from the vintage, blue willow tea set that came from my neighbour.  The knee in the picture belongs to her eighteen year old cousin and she fed the poor boy at least a gallon of none too clean water tea! ~

This grandson, we call The Chicken Whisperer.  He helps his mom care for the chickens that are brought to their animal sanctuary. ~

He checked the feathered girls over and pronounced them in the best of health!  He also gave me some really good pointers on daily care.  To keep the water in the trough clean and free of bits of straw, he set the trough up on a couple of bricks.  Why didn't that occur to me?

The favourite toy of the day for the little ones was this $5 wagon I bought at auction. ~

The favourite for all ages was a tether ball.  It says right on the box that it's not recommended for children under 36 mths. of age, as they may get their necks caught in the string.  I think they may what to mention that a missile, travelling at a high rate of speed, toward the toddlers head, is a bad idea, too.

Apparently, baby is a risk taker, because she loved that thing! ~

When she shot it at Chicken Whisperer he fell down.  He fell down over and over again and every time it broke Baby up! ~

The kids wanted to know why I had a rusty bucket hanging on the chicken pen.  I explained that I found the pen unattractive and was beginning to decorate it.  Since the girls are not allowed to have roosters come calling, I added a couple of pin up boys to decorate their walls.  ~

To find out how to age galvanized metal click here.  The images are from The Graphics Fairy and I used outdoor ModPodge to attach them to the bucket.

Baby and Amish Girl wanted to help and this is what we found them doing. ~

Hmmm - not exactly the look I was going for!  I'm pretty sure this won't be a Pinterest sensation.

Still, it's always nice to have a little help from grandkids!

I'm sharing this with:

Alpabe-Thursday

A Fun Little Paint Project

I sent my daughter, Farm Girl, a pic of a planter with a cute saying on it.  She has six kids and I thought she could relate to the sentiment.  She sent an e-mail back saying, "Make me one!".  When she only had two kids, she used to write long, newsy e-mails.  Now, I'm lucky to get one line!

This is what I came up with. ~

I've looked everywhere to find who did the original!  I thought I had it pinned but no luck.  If anyone knows who's work this is, let me know and I'll be sure they get credit.

Here's the inspiration. ~

I thought I would make a box and then I realized I had no idea how to do such a thing.  Plan B was to find a planter and add the text.

Then, I stumbled on this box made of some sort of composite stuff at my local Salvation Army for $1. ~

It even came with a fat, old cat in it!  He just has to try out every box that comes into this house. ~

This struck me as perfect to hold gardening hand tools!  A planter is really just an idle threat.  A tool box means business!  My mom raised six kids and she NEVER made idle threats.  If she said she'd throw your toys in the garbage if you didn't pick them up, that's exactly what she did!  No amount of crying or pleading made her back down, once she'd said a thing.

I asked Farm Girl if she wanted a craft done to look like weathered wood, aged paint or barn boards and she said, "Any or all of the above."  Okay, lets throw it all at this box!

I start with some Martha Stewart sample paint pots. ~

Then, I drew some lines on with permanent marker. ~

I washed a light taupe on the whole thing, added a crackle medium and gave it a light coat of white on top of that.  To make the crackle stand out a bit more, I dry brushed a light brown on top of it all. A little rub-on of a wheelbarrow makes a cute touch. ~

This is a good sized and very sturdy box and will hold everything she needs to take out to the garden. ~

Since Amish Girl and her sister are already working in the garden, it may be the other four that need to worry about being unruly! ~ 

My eldest granddaughter lives to ride horses, so maybe we'll call her National Velvet.  She'd like that!

Feel free to awwww over these sweeties!  

This week I'm joining the party at:

Open House Link Party

Wildly Original Round Up Party

Share Your Creations Party

Potpourri Friday

Frugal Friday

Hot Fun In The Summertime Blog Party

Feathered Nest Friday

Sunny Simple Sundays

Saturday Nite Special

DIY Project Parade

Open Call Tuesday

Primp Your Stuff Wednesday

Totally Transformed Tuesdays @ PJH Designs