Right in My Own Backyard

Below you will see what Leslie & I have been doing this week. Here it is Thursday, and we have been staining (not painting) the lattices & pergola. It's Olympic stain, but it sure goes on like and looks like paint. Leslie has been getting up at 5:30, and sometimes earlier, to eat breakfast and get out to work on the garage by 6:00. I usually have gotten out by 6:15, but today didn't get out till 7:00.

What was required to get where we are now? Well, the wood was washed with Deck Brightener and rinsed, then after it dried completely, we rolled on the Borrada wood preservative. After it dried, the lattices were stained directly, but the cross timbers and the posts were primed first. At this point, all of the wood except for the brackets, which I cleaned this morning, have one coat of stain on them.

I couldn't wait to post up these pictures before completing the brackets. After I post this up, I will go out with the garden hose and rinse them.
Once the second coat is on, we will go back and touch up to remove the gray drips from the espresso wall color. Then we'll pose ourselves in front of our "What We Did on Our Summer Vacation" project.
There's a popular cha-cha that our dance club dances to, to a big band-era song called "Right in My Own Backyard." Here is part of the first verse: "I'm spending my summer vacation right in my own backyard...." How appropriate this summer. We'll probably download it and dance to it on the patio!