:: in.a.mirror.dimly ::

I never thought all that much of the deck on our house. It seemed kind of tacked on. Painted battleship gray and badly peeling, it was a real eye sore. We crammed a grill and a large table onto the deck and kind of left things there. We sometimes ate dinner out back, but rarely did much else.

Then on Monday I put off some of my writing projects and started in the early morning hours on the restoration of our deck. Having swept and primed the day before, I splashed on two thick layers of semi-gloss exterior paint. White for the railings and a very light tan for the deck itself. I even ran out to the Home Depot and picked up some cheap pots, top soil, and petunias to go with the tobacco plants my in-laws gave us. You wouldn’t recognize it now from the deck it used to be, and there’s no other place I’d rather be than the back deck.

The deck is surrounded by flowers and practically glows. I’m going to bring the grill back eventually, but we’re leaving the table down on the grass until we need it and may look into a smaller table just to cut back on clutter. You can also see in the bottom right corner of the second photo the step I stuck in. It’s kind of tacked on with screws and supported by a cinder block. Hokey no doubt, but it’ll serve.

The majority of my writing is now done on the back deck. I even stay there when it’s dark. Life is pretty good I’d say.