The Super Official Homeowners Thread

[Deceus]

I read somewhere that composite decking gets a lot hotter in the sun than standard stained wood and can burn dog/cat paws. Just something to think about.

Would've been perfect for this house really. The decks only get sun from sunrise til about 11am. The staircase may have gotten a little hot as they get sun up until 2-3 most days. Definitely something I'm going to miss about the house when we move, especially how little direct sunlight the garage door gets during the summer, that's a real hidden gem. Nothing beats working in a nice cool 70 degree underground room on a 90+ day.

The deck is coming along, just have the side staircase and railings to deal with. Really don't want to touch another baluster as long as I live but at least this side should be the easiest. I can reach them all from outside the deck instead of reaching over the railing, that speeds things up a lot. Decided I'm taking down the shutters to repaint as well, they're pretty faded and they definitely stand out a lot with all the fresh stain going around. Not sure what product to use for that so guess I have some research to do.

Also just look at what I found when I played the "I'll just replace the one board" with the side staircase:





Water seemed to be pooling up in the middle and rotting straight down. The sides were holding but barely. Kinda worried with just how much of it crumbled away with minimal effort but I took a few more boards off to be sure the stringers weren't about to fail on my fat-ass. This is a problem for another person, this whole staircase needs to be rebuilt by someone who knows what they're doing as it's 15ft+ with no real bracing under it. I'll likely make that happen sometime next year if I'm still here. Clearly everything about this deck was not very well thought out at this point, I just hope the framing isn't as bad as everything else I've seen.

Cleaned up and resealed the best I can. 



Found some before pictures from when I got the siding soft washed and I was blown away by the difference. Really excited to get some really good before/after shots once everything is wrapped up. Should make it all worth it.