Shaping Up The Deck

Hey hey! How was your weekend?

First of all, I need to announce the winner of the Nudge Home giveaway! The lucky gal is Marisa Boney at marisabonney(at)hotmail(dot)com! Marisa, please send me an email and I’ll get you hooked up with your free bundle!

I’ve started about 35 projects in the past few weeks that I was planning on finishing up this weekend…but then the the beautiful weather hit. Today was just beautiful. I mean, 70’s, sun shining, blue skies with puffy white clouds, slight breeze…BEAUTIFUL.

So we took advantage the rare cool temps to get a few more things knocked off our very long outdoor to-do list!

While hubby worked on the lawn, I started cleaning up the glass from our door disaster.

Yes…started. We still hadn’t done it. It was a bit overwhelming.

That’s a lot of glass:

A LOT a lot.

(We didn’t use the backdoor for a week and had the glass covered till we could get to it.)

It took FOREVER. Oh em gee.

Mainly because I had to get down and use a flathead screwdriver to get all of the glass out from between each board:

Hours people.

The glass was literally embedded in between the deck boards…down as far as half an inch. It was insane. (I just knocked those through under the deck.)

But it had to be done, and now we can actually use the deck!

Speaking of the deck…when the glass was finally gone (I’ll be happy to never see broken glass again in my life), I moved on to the next project.

This one started with another glass disaster last summer:

Classy.  :)

A gust of wind moved the umbrella  and it shattered the middle glass piece in our old table.

We donated the set last year (it was in bad shape anyway), and that spot has been sitting nekked for a year now.

Last month I started the search for a new dining set and we had two criteria that had to be met – it couldn’t have a glass top (told you I’m not dealing with glass again) and it had to be affordable.

I fell in love with this Smith and Hawken Allogio set at Target:

Isn’t it gorgeous? It was on sale, but even at that, it was still going to be $1,300. Ouch.

But it was so purdy. And sturdy. ;)

We had to wait till our budget allowed it, and of course when that finally happened, our local Target was sold out. (Two days into June. Grrrr.)

They found the peices at some nearby stores, but that would have meant trips to three different Targets to get everything.

So it wasn’t happening.

So I was back on the search for a new dining set…I tried four other stores and only glass top tables were left.

I thunk and thunk, then decided to try Sears.

They had plenty in stock, WHOO! And in JUNE, can you believe it? ;)

I loved this set:

It is beautiful, but it was a bit busy for what I wanted.

I was going for a little more steamlined look and the more I thought about it, I thought the holes in the table top might end up driving me a little batty. I’m  also trying avoiding cushions at all costs (I’m not good and bringing them in, like, ever).

That set was a GREAT price though – I think $800?

They had another set that I loved and it was way cheaper:

It’s the Country Living Ashmore set and the table and six chairs were only…wait for it…$500 and the shipping was FREE! Awww yeah.

I did a little dance in the store. :)

We got the delivery last week so our next project for the day was assembling all of it. 

We really love how it turned out:

I love the detail on the backs of the seats, (they match the Target set almost exactly!), and they are still comfy, even more so than the one I mentioned above with the cushions.

The table has a slate-like material and I’m crossing my fingers it holds up better than the glass. :)

I LOVE how the colors in the slate pull in the red umbrella (we had) and the red in our deck.

Next up for the deck…more flowers need to be planted:

A new rug from Home Depot will go under the table:

(It’s about 7 1/2 by 11 feet for $100!)

I’ve also got a few tricks up my sleeve for our pergola, and goodNESS, we need to restain the deck so so so bad. So glad we remembered that AFTER we set up the new dining set.

That’s gonna be SO FUN. ;)

For now, I’m just happy to have a “finished” deck again. I love looking out to that spot from inside – it makes me feel like we’re in a treehouse:

I’ll show you the deck after I’m done…hopefully before the nasty heat hits in July. :)

We were out working for about five hours today, so to celebrate our new table, we ate our fancy dinner outside:

Yummo…I’m a sucker for Crazy Bread. ;)

And right now I am heading off to this:

My body is beat!

Did you accomplish anything outside this weekend? Is your outdoor to-do list as long as ours? We’re supposed to have fantastic temps all week and I hope to knock out a ton of outside projects!