@BunsenBurner Sorry…the one we used is no longer made…but it was a composite plastic…with a wood silica filler. It was a little less costly than Trex. It’s embossed with a woodgrain look that also keeps it from being slippery. I’ll see if one of the other neighbors remembers the company. It might be that our color was discontinued.
Our neighbors have Trex and it’s easily over ten years old….and looks brand new. Not slippery.
My husband says that now these all are good and he suggests looking at prices.
I’m well aware of the issues with composites, thanks! Heat absorption and also thermal expansion. That is why we are looking into Deckorators. Apparently, it does not expand as much as the PVC-based materials.
Neighbor thinks we used Azek. We got a great price at a lumberyard near here that runs a special on it every spring. It also helped that our color was being discontinued. We saved about $3000. This is a very very large waterfront deck. Plus we also built a float, and three sections of docking. The stuff has not needed any maintenance other than a washing off in the spring…it looks brand new.
Exterior paint colors- looking for suggestions of colors to paint a 1960’s California one story stucco/ wood trim house. The house is typical of the tracts built in Ca in the 60’s and 70’s. The house has been a rental and the owners want to sell it. I’ve been tasked with finding some different colors. I’m looking for,something that would give the house some curb appeal. @coralbrook so you have any color combos you’ve used recently?
We finally will start our next major project sometime in the summer. Our deck, built by the previous owners, is a Frankenstein of decks, lol. It was cobbled up using pieces going back to the original house… meaning the eighties! I’m sure some of the beams have seen parties dancing to Madonna and the likes on them. The subsequent owners kept some but added some. It is a mess! Plus, the cedar decking is looking rather pathetic.
We decided we want a clean slate. All of that hodgepodge will be ripped out and replaced with new stuff. This work will be outsourced! I will post pics when we are done.
We replaced our 56 yo windows this week – all of the upstairs windows and the kitchen in this phase. I’m so thrilled with the kitchen windows-- the new bay window makes our eat-in area so much larger!
Bunsen just saw your question from a while back - I’ll ask my hub about deck material recs. He’s out woodworking right now - it’s all def his thing, lol.
My wife and I are a good DIY team. We both have a pretty good eye for design, we’re not afraid to roll up our sleeves, and we love saving money.
One project we’re particularly pleased with is our kitchen backsplash. We bought 8’ x 4’ sheets of 1/4” thick maple plywood and dyed (as opposed to stained) them a rich blue color to complement our seaside environment. We then sealed them with a hard transparent sealant and installed them ourselves. Being large sheets, they went up very quickly.
Wooden backsplashes! I have no idea how we came up with that idea but they’re beautiful and cost a small fraction of granite, marble, or tile.
Sherpa - that’s such a cool idea. I thought people used stuff like tile or granite because of the water impermeability. Although when you think about - water isn’t laying on the backsplash, I guess - so wood probably fine?
Some kitchens don’t have backsplashes at all, just painted wall. Like our kitchen. The main purpose of the backsplash is not to provide waterproofing, it is to have a surface that is easily cleaned in case something does splatter onto it.
I pulled out the step by step instructions and now realize that I was wrong. We used a stain, not a dye.
Here are the steps:
Sand the plywood with 150 grit sandpaper
Apply benite wood conditioner with a rag, wait 24 hours
Apply an analine stain liberally, wipe off excess
Wait 2 hours, apply another coat
Wait overnight and make sure the color doesn’t wipe off
Apply a top coat of Profin
Wait 3 hours, apply another coat
Buff lightly with a green pad
Top with a third coat of Profin
Preparing the wood was the most tedious and time consuming part of the project. But 5 years later it still looks good as new.
Here’s another of our DIY projects. For all our interior and exterior railings we went with glass. The bids for custom glass railings were through the roof, as were the bids for cable railings. So we did a little research and learned you can buy aluminum railing posts, bolt them to the floor, measure and order glass, and simply slide the glass into the posts. Truly easy.
Less than half the cost of cable, and A LOT cheaper than custom glass railings. The posts came from Canada and came complete with engineering specifications that satisfy the International Building Code. The only frustration was waiting weeks for them to clear customs.
Edit to add: The angles and measurements on the stair parallelograms was impossible for me to calculate, but that’s why we had kids.
2nd edit to add: The barn doors weren’t custom; we bought them from a company that installs a stainless steel inlay.
And the handsome boy at the bottom of the picture is Toby, our 84 pound standard poodle.
Heat absorption and also thermal expansion. That is why we are looking into Deckorators. Apparently, it does not expand as much as the PVC-based materials.
The subsequent owners kept some but added some. It is a mess! Plus, the cedar decking is looking rather pathetic.
