Rustoleum Restore 4X Deck Cover

Just another manic Monday... aw we ah... I wish it were Sunday, no, Saturday.  I will go with Saturday on this one.  Did you have an action packed weekend?  Or was it filled with relaxation?  We managed to do a little bit of both.  After all, the second season of Orange is the New Black was just released on Netflix.  Say what?!  Such an awesome show.  I am really appreciating how they are touching on the inmates stories a bit more then they did on the first season.  I never thought I would say this, but I am feeling kinda bad for that psycho, Tiffany... and Queen Vee?  She scares me...

In between the hour long episodes, we got some things crossed off our ever growing shit list.  It was a unanimous decision to get gutters on our house... I know, we are those people who don't have gutters.  We have some more price checking to do, but figured out that our back gutters won't cost us more than $200.00 Benjamins.  More to come on that.

In the meantime, we started picking away at our deck... literally.  We have actually had to pick away the wood that has somehow managed to grow over the screws on our deck.  About 1 out of every 5 screws are stripped.  It has been a NIGHTMARE.  The goal was to get at least one deck board up.  We did two.  50% more than our original goal!  Sa-weet!  There is always a silver-lining.  After flipping the two boards we noticed they were green treated.  After a good power wash, the wood was practically new again.

We went to check out deck stain at Home Depot.  We currently have this pretty awful red stain that looks more like a muddy red paint--

Bleh.  We are fans of the "wet wood" look, and were searching for a stain that made our deck resemble just that.  In our search we came across this Rustoleum product- Restore.  Apparently, the goal in mind with this product is to give your deck the look and feel of composite decking.  There are three types of products; Restore 10X, Restore 4X, and Restore Stain.  

Memorial Week(end)

Thank God for one more day off, I tell ya.  This past weekend was jam packed with house projects, family time, down time, and dog time. Still have no clue where three solid days off went, but judging by the length of this blog post, I think I have a pretty good idea...

We kicked off our weekend after celebrating Gretzky's big 0-2 birthday!  TWO!!!!  We can't believe it either.  He can officially be welcomed into doggy adulthood.  We are very excited to see what being two brings for our favorite champ.

On Friday, Shane managed to get the day off.  Lucky shit.  I am going to take the fact that he, without a doubt, deserved that day off out of the equation and be jealous of it anyway.  On Friday afternoon I had to head to the Post Bulletin to get a photo taken for the "Your Style" section.  I am actually pretty elated about this opportunity.  I know I am a fashion risk-taker, because I don't put too much thought into what I am wearing.  I really just put on what I feel like, and try to own the outfit to the best of my ability.  Fashion is just another opportunity to set yourself apart from the rest.  Tune into the Post Bulletin!

...Meanwhile back on Harvest Court, Shane decided to step into a mole hill in Essex park and sprained his ankle pretty bad.  At this point we have both become experts on putting on an Ace bandage with a cold pack.  Even with a sprain, Shane wouldn't let that hold him back, and accomplished 15,000 steps on his FitBit in one day.  Damn son!

**If you are on the fence about buying a FitBit, I'll just say how much we love ours, and you should probably just get one.  We are always graciously accepting FitBit friend requests.

As I was saying before in recent blogs, we are really focusing on the outside of our home this summer.  That, and our master bedroom downstairs.  Last fall I sold our black wire patio table.  I am sure I could have refurbished it, but the look wasn't very inviting.  Last week we snagged a great deal on patio furniture.  Turns out it was from Ikea.  The thing I love most about Ikea furniture is there is absolutely no end in sight with all of the creative bits you can come up with.  I took a special trip up there to check out some patio cushions... lucky for me they were SOLD OUT.  I wasn't going to walk away with nothing, dammit, so I picked up two of these Applaro Folding Chairs to add to our set.  With the folding chairs, the Applaro bench, two recliners, and the Gateleg folding table, we now have six places to sit on our deck.  SIX places!  I don't know about you, but I get a bit of a thrill realizing that I have places for people to sit at our house.  You know you're a grown up when...

So here is the rundown, or at least the start of, our patio furniture overhaul--