Last summer I had the opportunity to clean and stain the back deck. There was one nice weekend when we weren’t working on the kitchen renovations, and I was able to clean everything down, sand the deck, and give it a couple of coats of stain. This summer we’ll be hopefully tackling our back deck area as well, and I’d love to share the plans with you here!
Our deck is just over a foot off of the ground, and during our home inspection it was recommended that we add railings along the edges. I’d like to add another step off of the front (where the grass is) and perhaps one on the right side as well (the far side in this image). The photo above is a view of the deck during our kitchen renovation (notice the garbage pail in the middle with pieces of drywall?) so I hadn’t stained it at this point.
We had done the concrete patio area two summers ago (see the area to the left of the deck, that I had mentioned in our Front Walkway Plans). We also have this little section on the right (seen in the photo above) where we have kept our barbecue.
The main section of our back deck is 14′ x 16′, and I created the above graphic to show whereabouts everything is. The door on the left goes to our garage, and there is another little deck part there (at a lower level) that acts as a landing between the main deck and our concrete patio section.
In addition to the steps, I’d like to add a couple of built-in planter boxes, but the main feature we’ll be adding is a seating/railing around most of the perimeter. Here are a couple of reference images for what I was thinking of:
Pin: Planter Box Ideas Pin: Bench Seating
Basically, the bench section will act both as a railing, as well as add extra seating for our deck. I think we’ll put our main patio set on the concrete part, and then bring in another table and put it along the benches. The railing part of those benches has a little edge along the top, which could even be used as a mini surface area for holding drinks when you’re standing in the grass!
The graphic above shows where we’ll be putting the bench, the steps down to the grass, and the potential planter boxes (but I’d rather focus on the benches and steps for now). But before any of that happens, apparently I’ll need to stain the deck again! (Note to self: look into composite decking for the future house).
It’s crazy to see the difference a coat of stain does (see the little landing section in the photo above?), so I can’t wait to see what the deck will look like once it finally has railings and is all setup for summer parties! We still have most of our patio furniture stored in our shed from winter, and hopefully we can get this deck project started so we can have lots of barbecues. But of course… there’s still the garden to build and plant and the front walkway to redo as well.
I’m thinking we’ll start with the garden, that way the plants will have time to grow, and then what should we do next?
I’d love to read your comments on our big three summer plans!
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