DIY DECK MAKEOVER | FULL RENOVATION (+ EXCITING NEWS)!

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hi friends it's sam and today we're

going to finish my deck makeover well

we're not really going to like actually

finish it today it's going to take a

couple of days because there's still a

lot to do but in today's video

specifically we're gonna finish my deck

makeover there's a lot to do so let's

get started

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this video is sponsored by anchor all

right friends so what is a good diy

video without a recap of how it started

so here is what my deck looked like when

i started this project at the beginning

of july now i cover a lot of the gritty

details about like the before process in

this deck in part one of this deck

makeover series if you missed that video

you can check it out i've linked it

below this video in the video

description but given you all the spark

notes version here essentially most of

this deck was in pretty solid condition

minus the railings and the stairs which

were kind of rotted so i really wanted

to just kind of keep what i could demo

what i needed to and start the process

of creating a more modern look for this

deck that had a little more privacy so

that we could have a little bit of an

oasis in our backyard

now once i was done demoing all of the

parts of the deck that could not really

be salvaged i decided to pressure wash

and sand down the existing deck boards

and also replace the steps before giving

everything a fresh coat of stain

i then rounded out part one of my deck

makeover series by rebuilding the

skirting on the bottom of the deck to

something a little more modern and

rebuilding the stairs which leads us to

today's video where i finish the rest of

this deck

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well there's like 32 more of

that guy on my front lawn

but

who's counting who's counting anyway

i'm over this project

all right so since the last time we met

i finally decided on a stain color for

the deck which is perfect timing because

my goal for day one of part two of this

deck makeover was to stain the bottom

half of the deck and also pre-stain the

top boards before installing the

railings so in order to get a quick and

even finish though i did want to use my

sprayer so first step was prepping the

area and protecting things in my yard

from overspray

now working in my backyard has been

amazing but i don't have the entire yard

set up with outlets quite yet so when

i'm working anywhere but on the actual

deck it can get a little tricky with

running cords across my whole yard i

also don't have that many cords so to

help keep me powered up no matter where

i'm working i partnered up with anker to

use their anchor 757 powerhouse portable

power station

this power station is a beast i was

honestly so impressed by it it has a

long-lasting battery that will keep my

projects powered up until i want to

power it down and it charges from zero

to 80 percent in just an hour so if i do

run out of juice i'm able to be back up

and running after a quick snack break

the premium lfp batteries will remain in

a healthy state even after 3 000

complete charge cycles with six times

longer battery lifespan than the

industry average and it comes with a

five year warranty which means i will be

powered up for many projects to come

i actually was able to plug in my

sprayer and my phone charger at the same

time and spray the entire perimeter of

my deck and the dozen and a half boards

i had in the backyard that i was

actually able to carry and i still had

88 of the battery power left over after

all that spraying

another cool feature of this portable

power station is that it has 1500 watt

output power which basically means i can

pretty much plug most of my tools into

it and i can even power up my home

appliances if i ever need to in an

outage situation there are definitely

smaller options available as well with

the same long lasting battery capability

which is great for other portable

projects on the go

if you're interested in being charged up

on the go i would highly recommend

checking out anker's line of portable

power stations by clicking on the link

to their website and the 757 below this

video

so back to business my original goal was

to get all of these boards pre-stained

because these are the boards i'm using

to rebuild my railings but mother nature

had a completely different plan in mind

all right check-in time so originally

the forecast today said that there was

no rain but now i just got an alert on

my phone that there's about to be a

heavy rain so

the socks mostly because i really wanted

to get these boards pre-stained before

my dad comes by tomorrow to help me with

the deck but i think what i'm gonna have

to do is just assemble this thing with

my dad and then

cover up the metal railings and

stain these boards once they're up it's

not ideal and it kind of sucks but it is

what it is so i'm gonna start to pack it

in before it starts to pour on me and i

hope that there's enough time for

whatever i painted to actually dry

why can't things be easy why can't

things be easy

i'll see you tomorrow friends

all right so yesterday was a wash like a

literal

wash because it started raining even

though

the weather man said it was not going to

rain so

you know what

forget you weatherman

today it's super hot out and i have my

partner in crime here

to help me

but we're just gonna put these railings

up and i guess i'll stain them once

they're assembled that was not the

original plan but it is what it is

because i gotta do what i gotta do while

i have dad here

here i am so i stole dad for the day

we're gonna get these railings up maybe

we're gonna do it okay it's gonna rain

today no it better not rain today all

right we're gonna go

away dad mood oh yeah right and get

these railings up

both in the shot i didn't check

nice shirt dad is this your catwalk i

like it my catwalk

so i mentioned in my last video that a

very special guest would be helping me

with the railing portion of my deck and

that is my dad because he is the best

but honestly having another set of hands

for this part of the project was so

helpful and we only had to make one home

depot trip during the entire thing are

you so proud of us or what so i shared a

little sneak peek of this portion of

this project on instagram recently and

got so many questions about the railing

system that i'm using for my deck so

let's break it down

as always though i definitely will link

to this product in the description box

below this video if anyone's interested

but long story short i decided to go

with something called the hoft system

which are essentially metal posts that

have grooves in the side so that you can

slide boards into the grooves they also

come with these really cool spacers so

that they very evenly space out all of

the boards for a really neat look i'm

not gonna sugarcoat it it is not the

cheapest option for deck railings or

privacy fences but a it definitely cost

me less than replacing our entire deck

and b it looks really cool so that's a

win

the system was way easy to install first

we just bolted all of the posts to the

actual deck itself and then i cut out

some boards and those boards just slid

right into those grooves no fancy

equipment or fasteners needed really one

thing to note is that there definitely

is a threshold for how far apart the

posts can be so that the boards stay

stable and they don't warp over time and

this threshold for this system is six

feet so we did have to put a post at the

maximum six feet apart or less

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what do you got show me i got my shim

so those are little

spacers that go in between each of the

boards they come with the metal post so

they slide right on into that groove

all the way down

and then the next row that we put in is

automatically going to be a half inch

gap between that's much better than half

but a half inch gap between this board

and the next because of those spacers so

check it out

not gonna lie having a second set of

hands around for this part of the

project was

game changing because while i cut all of

the boards on the miter saw my dad was

in charge of sliding all of the boards

into the grooves and making sure to add

the spacers honestly we were kind of a

dream team i'm not gonna lie

we're trying to decide if we want to rip

the top board or leave a gap up top i

can't decide what i like better i'm

gonna take we're gonna take a minute

here's what we're gonna do so we're not

sure where the top row is going to end

on the tall ones so we're going to put

everything in except for the top row and

kind of step back and check it out and

then worst case scenario we'll just kind

of we'd have to rip like literally a

quarter of an inch off of the board to

make it fit so we're going to play it by

ear i'm not gonna get too excited yet

spoiler alert i ended up ripping those

top boards just a little bit to make

those end caps fit but no big deal

we're hot

sweaty it's a really summer day to

decide to do this

so we got half of the deck done i think

it looks really great so far i still

wish i could have been able to pre-stain

the boards before hanging them but

luckily all the posts come covered in

plastic so i don't actually have to tape

them or cover them when i paint now i

can literally just paint and then pull

the plastic off so like that will save

me some time i have to do some sanding

the top row needs to be trimmed so we're

going to do that tomorrow because we're

tired a full dab mold right now yeah and

uh dad is crushing it right now check

this out ain't nothing that a hot shower

can't fix and a hot tub i'm gonna go

help him bring some more lumber in the

back get the tools away

tomorrow we're gonna get back out here

after my dad's full-time job maybe not

maybe

yes to finish the other half of the deck

and then the goal is tomorrow's monday

so tuesday i'd like to get out here and

stand and steam and then by wednesday

i'd like to really start getting things

together and start putting the finishing

touches on here because i really want to

be able to enjoy our deck by the weekend

so all right i'm gonna go help him

before he hurts himself see everyone

tomorrow

dad mathed wrong i have to move a post

now

that's the last time i let him do the

measuring

so of course i'm doing that thing where

i'm laughing at myself watching this

back because the fact that i thought i

was gonna get this thing done by

wednesday hysterical it actually took me

until saturday night to get it done but

at least it's done and i cannot wait to

show you what it looks like anyway

before i get ahead of myself dad and i

we championed it out and finished those

railings the next day and then i went in

there with a sander and then it was time

for the most satisfying part of this

project spraying everything with some

wood stain

like i mentioned i would have loved to

have pre-stained all of these boards but

this worked out completely because all

of those posts were covered in plastic

that i was able to peel away once i was

done

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this is good in an hour

i could put on a second coat

and i think i'm gonna beat the sun so

yeah once this is dry

i can finally get my patio furniture up

on my deck instead of all scattered

around my yard so

this is exciting

i'll see you tomorrow with some progress

friends good night

okay so typically i save little touch-up

detail stuff for last in a big project

but at this point my patio furniture was

already delivered and i wanted to get

the boxes up on the deck before i put

the railings on the stairs so i decided

at this point that's what i was gonna do

so i added a step up to our door that

leads into our kitchen i added some trim

work and at this point i was able to get

those boxes up there

now in terms of salvaging verse keeping

things i really wanted to keep these

lights so badly but upon further

inspection they were rusted out pretty

badly and were leaking so i decided to

swap them out for something else

at this point i also made sure to

silicone any gap between anything and

the siding on the house including the

lights and the door and the windows and

then it was time to do something that i

think is going to make a lot of you

happy because i did get a lot of

comments about this in my last video i

finally painted those exposed cedar

planks from that window swap out in our

kitchen

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okay friends

it's

chicken time

so

i personally think this deck is looking

pretty cool but there are definitely

still things i need to finish before i

can like enjoy it first up today we're

going i say we like i have a whole team

of people that's about to help me do

this project it's just me and the moral

and emotional support that i get from

all of you today so thank you for

helping me with this project anyway

today i'm going to be installing the

railings for the stairs it's super

simple same process as the railings up

top i want them to match completely the

only difference is that i obviously am

going to have to cut the boards for the

railings at like a weird angle i don't

know yet so we'll figure that out

together

but i'm going to basically just screw or

lag bolt the

posts

into the stone and the concrete i poured

a little concrete post there a couple

days ago um and

yeah oh one more thing other than that

so this board here i don't know if you

can see it on

camera but it's like really bowed out

this way it just is being a brat and a

half all the rest of the boards on the

deck look

phenomenal if i must say so myself so

i'm actually going to replace this board

while i'm working on cutting lumber and

staining lumber anyway today

luckily because this doesn't have like

the anchor post and up top yet i

actually i'm really happy i thought it

was proactive these can actually slide

on out so i'm gonna slide out all four

of these remove this one completely

slide these three down and then just

replace this one with one on top and uh

yeah should be good so i am going to

get started on the railings and then i'm

going to change because i actually like

this shirt and if i stain it i'm going

to ruin it and i don't want to ruin the

shirt and then

once i'm done i can finish

assembling all of my patio furniture i

kind of like sneak peek started and it

looks awesome and i cannot wait to have

all of this deck done because this has

been like a month-long process and i'm

frankly pretty tired so i'm ready for

like breakfast lunch and dinner on this

deck every single day until the end of

the summer and honestly probably until

after the end of the summer because i

actually love the fall and i'm so ready

for cold weather i'm so over this hot

weather okay now i'm having my own bread

attack there's a lot to do i just want

to finish up this project so

let's get started friends we got this we

could do this wow okay that was a lot so

pretty self-explanatory i think but

let's walk through it so first up i had

to attach those bottom railings to

something in order to have railings so

to do this i drilled directly into the

concrete using a masonry bit and then

use concrete specific fasteners in order

to secure it tightly

at this point i then switched my focus

to swapping out that warped board this

was a question a lot of people are

asking me about on instagram but this

system is really cool because it doesn't

use fasteners so i can literally just

replace any board i need to over time by

taking off the top railing covers and

then sliding out the boards and sliding

a new one back in it's kind of one of

the things i love the most about the

system

next up i began to cut the railings and

i found the angle by literally holding

the board up to the railings marking the

angle with a pencil and then matching

the angle on my miter saw alright

friends i hope you can hear me because

every time i

decide i want to talk to you my

neighbors decide they want a weed whack

or power wash today's power washing day

in case anyone was wondering anyway i

want to show you something okay

so

okay

this

fits great

but here's the problem

see what i'm looking at

even though

those boards are the same the railing

looks bigger

than this board here

the reason for that is because of the

angle it's at

but because these boards have to stay

uniform

i can only fix this problem so i'm going

to take this to my table saw i'm going

to cut whatever this difference is off

here eyeballing it looks like an inch

i'm going to obviously measure

um i'm going to cut let's say an inch

off

bring this board back

and then install it again and then it

should look like it matches up

hope that makes sense

it's hot today it's table sergeant

all right let's see what this looks like

yes

that looks much better

see

now it lines up

so i'm going to continue this pattern

for the rest of the railings

and then i think it's going to be easier

sand and spray these yeah maybe i'll

pre-stain everything okay

it's a process but we're making progress

so call back to earlier in this video

when i wanted to pre-stain all of the

railing pieces for the deck before

installing them luckily that's exactly

what i got to do with all of the pieces

that i needed to put on the stair

railings as well as that one that i

needed to replace

and just like i did for the deck

railings all i had to do was slide these

boards into those grooves use spacers in

between each one and yeah that's

literally all i had to do

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oh

my goodness this is the last sport isn't

it it's the last board i don't think i

can even like explain the feeling like

the full body chills i just got when i

was like it's the last board once i'm

done with this board i'm literally done

with this production project eventually

i'm gonna do landscaping but it's just

been too hot and i don't want to kill

the plants that i'm trying to plant back

here but

other than the landscaping that means

like once i put this last board in it's

time for finishing touches

and it means i can enjoy my deck even

more exciting i'm gonna like spill the

beans at the end of this video why this

project is so meaningful and also why i

wanted to get it done even though it's

90 degrees out every day and uh

putting the

basically final piece in this puzzle is

just really cool feeling all right

here we go

i'm so excited

to put this last piece

on my deck

tell me it doesn't fit

i would not be surprised

that would be my luck

no we're in there

just gotta hammer everything down

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i'm done

i could literally cry i could literally

cry the happiest tears that i'm done

with this project i'm tired this has

taken me probably like honestly a month

to do and i'm over it so

but it's done so happy gotta get these

end caps on clean up the yard and then

tomorrow i can actually

decorate my deck tomorrow night i can

actually enjoy my deck and then in

september something big is happening

right here on this deck so i can't wait

to share with you all oh so excited so

excited that was really satisfying good

job sam

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now that the construction part of this

deck makeover project was done it was

time to focus on the part of the project

that i have been waiting for which is

getting my brand new patio furniture

from article out of their boxes and on

to our deck we have big plans for this

deck that i'll be spilling at the end of

this video but we basically wanted it to

not only look and feel inviting but also

be able to comfortably seat a lot of

guests so to do this i decided to split

the deck into a lounge area and a dining

area

for the lounge area i chose the collis

taupe gray sectional with matching

coffee table and they are so

red they are both made from solid acacia

wood that will weather to a soft gray

over time and they have these really

awesome black knotted rope accents and

storage shelves which would be great for

my obsession with hoarding plants and

pottery i also decided to ground this

area with a hand woven indoor outdoor

elko geogrug and honestly it is so cozy

out here

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for the dining area of the deck we

decided to go with the lubeck tuscan

brown dining set which i've honestly

been drooling over for the longest time

this set includes a dining table and two

benches which were so easy to assemble

straight from the box although they do

offer assembly services for anyone who

needs it the set also comes with these

gorgeous powder coated steel legs which

you all know that i'm a total sucker for

it is seriously amazing how much my

article furniture transformed this

outdoor space and their furniture is

super high quality which means i'm gonna

be able to use it for years to come

which is awesome but now that this space

is furnished and ready to party are you

ready for the big reveal because i know

that i am

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okay

check-in time

wow it feels so nice to sit down

my body is not happy it is so sore but

my soul is so happy i legitimately don't

think like this could have turned out

any better everything that i was like

cooking up in my brain really came to

life in the space and honestly i feel

like it turned out like even better than

i thought it would so i got a couple

questions about why i chose the hottest

month of the year to redo my deck and i

got you fam so a couple things one is

that with my full-time job in the

summers is the only time i have like an

extended vacation to do any work second

so really exciting news but chris and i

are gonna be getting married in this

backyard in a couple of months with our

closest friends and family and i really

wanted to make this space come to life

before the big day because we are gonna

be getting married right here on this

deck when we got engaged a few years ago

our dream was to buy a house and have a

backyard wedding that could like

function as a wedding but also a

housewarming thing and so buying this

house has been

really symbolic for us in a lot of ways

and this deck makeover especially

just feels so special also life-wise

like obviously this deck is not just for

our wedding we've never had an outdoor

space for as long as we've lived

together because we've always leased or

rented apartments and now we have a

space that is ours and we have done what

we wanted with it and i cannot believe

that this is our space so i want to be

like all machinists aside but i'm going

to get mushy for one more second there

were so many times during this project

in the 90 degree heat that i did not

want to finish or i just wanted to like

hire somebody and throughout this entire

process you have all been so supportive

especially on social media and just

keeping me real motivated so i do want

to say thank you all so much for just

being so awesome i hope my goal with

every project is that i hope to

inspire somebody to go out there and

tackle a project or try something new

and

this project in particular just had a

lot of really new things for me to try

so thank you for being supportive and

patient as i

got my ish together in this space okay

back to business so

because we're getting married in this

backyard in a couple of months there are

a couple more projects they do want to

tackle out here before the big day so if

that's something you're interested in

please make sure to click that

notification bell because i wasn't lying

i've been building my butt off this

summer there are tons of projects coming

your way and i am not missing a beat

that being said i hope that you will

subscribe to my channel if you're not

subscribed already if you are subscribed

already thank you you're awesome i love

you

and yeah

i'm gonna take the night to enjoy

my new deck and then tomorrow it's back

to business and it's back to business

probably on some projects on the inside

because i am over this heat for a while

so thank you all for being awesome thank

you all for being here i will see you

soon with a new project but until then

friends happy diying

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you