Exterior and Yard

We had a few small projects to do in the backyard, mainly consisting of a tidy up of the grounds and staining the deck. There was a bit of a story about the stained deck. The timber had weathered to the usual silver colour (as you can see in the photo below) and we decided to stain it to smarten it up a bit. We chose a Kwila stain from Mitre 10 Mega, that once applied, looked like the most horrendous shade of orange! It was awful and there was no way we could keep it that way. Another trip to Mitre 10 Mega and Taff returned with a shade called 'Blackbean', which was really a fancy way of saying black! It wasn't what we wanted but we had no other way of disguising the ghastly orange. Well, once the Blackbean was applied, the result was a perfect warm dark brown colour that was exactly what we were initially after, but couldn't find! It was a great result but unfortunately we lost two days in the process as it took poor Taff many hours to apply. We are very sad we didn't get a photo of the finished product as it looked great!

We also repainted the fence in Resene Grey Friars and added our BBQ, lounger and our Panton outdoor set to set the scene for entertaining! This was always our favourite part of the house and no doubt the new owners will grow to love it as much as we did.

The whole exterior of the house received a new paint job and this was a real family effort. Taff and Dad were on the spray gun, while Luz and Brian had the unenviable job of painting the trellis. I don't think I realised how long painting trellis would take, literally hours and I would go as far as saying days, by the time we got all the bits and pieces done! We painted the roof, fences, front deck and exterior trims in Grey Friars and the weatherboards in Resene Half Merino.

The spray gun was absolutely amazing and made the job very fast. The longest part was the preparation. As you can see, everything needed covering, even the plants (my Dad is a perfectionist when it comes to painting)! 

Unfortunately we didn't get any photos of the full finished exterior but it looked a hundred times better than the cream and dark green it started off as. We also repainted the front patio area and stairs which were unsightly terracota tiles and added a couple of potted plants and a second hand rattan sofa with cushions.

As you can see from the photo above, it was far from attractive and looked a whole heap better once it was done!