Painting! What a difference it makes....

So I talked about choosing paint colors for the deck.... then preparing the space or paint.... and now it's time to actually share the finished paint job!  Our deck is half wood and half concrete.  It's important that you choose the appropriate paint for the surface your painting.  Don't forget about choosing exterior paint when painting things that are outdoors.

For the wood portion, we used True Value's Painter's Select Porch and Floor satin paint in "Afterhours".  The orange lid you see on the can was the best two bucks we've ever spent!  Instead of having to bang the lid on and off every time we need to open the can, this lid has a screw cap that lets you pour it out at a nice controlled stream.  We decided to try out a paint sprayer since the deck has railings that would take FOREVER to paint!  The paint sprayer (again, from True Value) made very quick work of the project, though it does use more paint than doing it by brush and if you don't lay down drop clothes your bushes will also get painted.  (On a side note, you can also find stain tips for the paint sprayer and use it to stain which solves a TON of problems with streaking when staining!  We used it for the mason jar light stain, amazing!).

On the concrete portion of the deck we used textured Quickcrete concrete paint.  My True Value location was discontinuing this paint so I picked it up on clearance.  The light texture in the paint gives the surface a nice no slip surface but not anything that is uncomfortable to walk on with bare feet.  Are you ready for the big paint reveal?

The concrete portion of the deck was inspired by my friend Lori and her original floor stencil that she generously shares with all of us! But instead of doing my entire floor I decided to have a rough edge stripe down the center.  The concrete goes up the house a bit on one side so I wanted it to look like it was a waterfall coming out of the wall.

Now that everything is painted and the gazebo is up, it's time to start decorating!  Can't wait to pull it all together.