Staining Our DIY Wood Platform Deck

Staining Our DIY Wood Platform Deck

I’m so excited to share that our DIY platform deck is officially done, and just in time for the summer 2022 season! If you remember, my dad, John, and I spent a couple of days last fall building our own raised floating deck, and since that time we’ve been letting the treated lumber air out in preparation for its final stain treatment. Fast forward 30-some weeks, and that step is now finally complete, and I can share the finished deck with all of you today.

Staining Our DIY Wood Platform Deck

Staining Our DIY Wood Platform Deck

Staining Our DIY Wood Platform Deck

Click back here if you want a thorough recap of the build process. That post details how we dismantled our old, rotten shed that we inherited from the previous homeowners, and how we planned and permitted for a brand new handmade deck. Our goal was to turn an underutilized space in our small backyard into something that we could actually use, and I’m happy to report that it has been in regular use ever since we completed the build—even before we finished the new stain treatment!

Staining Our DIY Wood Platform Deck

Staining Our DIY Wood Platform DeckStaining Our DIY Wood Platform DeckStaining Our DIY Wood Platform Deck

In case you didn’t know, one important step in building a deck from treated lumber is that you have to give the wood a good bit of time to dry out after construction. There’s something about the treatment process that requires a wait time between that first building phase and when you can stain the wood boards, so we gave the deck plenty of time to dry out post-construction. We left those blonde-colored boards alone for as long as we could stand, but I don’t mind admitting that we were pretty anxious to get a coat of dark brown stain on the wood grain. Our un-stained deck stuck out like a sore thumb for the seven months that we let the wood dry out, but come April of this year, we were finally ready to complete that last lingering step.

Color, of course, was our main focus in the time leading up to staining. I don’t generally overthink color. I’m a spontaneous (and impatient) person by nature, so I never planned on spending hours in the stain aisle to choose a color for our deck. Luckily, I just happened to spot a post on one of my favorite designer’s Instagram feeds about staining deck boards, and I loved the color he chose. I have 100 percent confidence in Dabito’s color instincts in general, and was actually really drawn to the specific medium-toned stain he chose for his outdoor fence, so I went ahead and placed my order for the same color stain for our outdoor deck.

Staining Our DIY Wood Platform Deck

Staining Our DIY Wood Platform Deck

Fast forward one week, and we had our gallon of Chocolate Transparent Waterproofing Exterior Wood Finish stain in hand, ready to coat our deck once and for all. In case you didn’t hear, I’ve been suffering from chronic wrist pain that seems to be most painful during painting and gardening projects. For that reason, my mom graciously offered her strong joints to take over, and she stained our entire deck for us by herself in the course of an hour or two one Tuesday morning last month.

Based on her review, I can relay that the stain was really easy to work with, and I can also attest to the amazing results (that you see pictured here in today’s post). She did a combination of rolling and brushing to coat the bare treated wood boards in one coat of stain to help protect them for the rainy spring/summer season ahead. Doesn’t it look great?!

Staining Our DIY Wood Platform Deck

Staining Our DIY Wood Platform Deck

Staining Our DIY Wood Platform Deck

Staining Our DIY Wood Platform Deck

Staining Our DIY Wood Platform Deck

Staining Our DIY Wood Platform Deck

I love how the warmer, darker stain makes the deck feel like more of a natural extension of our red brick ranch home. Now it looks less like an addition, and more like an intentional outdoor living space. If we didn’t know any better, we’d almost assume that it had been here since the 1960s when the house was originally built!

Truth be told, we haven’t spent a ton of time on our back deck yet, but I blame that on a combination of unseasonably chilly weather for May, and also a lack of privacy from our neighbors. We are still waiting on our black chain-link fence, but I think once that’s installed in the next week or two we’ll feel much more confident about being lazy on our newly stained DIY floating deck. More updates to come, so stay tuned!

Staining Our DIY Wood Platform Deck

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My Wall-Mounted Desk And Office Nook

My Wall-Mounted Desk And Office Nook

*This post was made possible by the generous support of Teknion, and features gifted product for testing purposes. All opinions are my own.

I don’t know about you, but I like to enjoy variety when it comes to my work station. I tend to seek out all sorts of different spots to work from in our house, and, luckily, my work-from-home freelancer lifestyle affords me that benefit. I know lots of other folks are now newly (or maybe not so newly) settled into the work-from-home routine thanks to shifting pandemic norms, so I wanted to offer a bit of inspiration to those of you who also crave desk flexibility. With that said, I’d like to introduce you to my new wall-mounted office nook.

My Wall-Mounted Desk And Office Nook

My Wall-Mounted Desk And Office Nook

I partnered with the brand Teknion to put these photos together for a sponsored Instagram-only spotlight, but I wanted to add a blog post to the deal as a bonus so that you guys could get the benefit of a more thorough review. The brand sent us the desk and chair to try out, and we’ve been loving them so much ever since we got them set up in our family room.

The concept of this campaign was built around the idea of creating a flex office area that could serve multiple functions—a working desk as needed, of course, but also a place to jot down your grocery list, maybe an indoor potting station for you gardeners out there, a gaming or craft area, etc. As you may know, I have a fully functioning home office on the main floor of our home, but I really do love moving around the house to work. Having a fresh perspective keeps my mind active, and I’m more easily able to overcome writer’s block when I shift to, say, the dining room instead of my everyday office to write.

And now I have my new wall-mounted desk on the lower level to jump-start my creativity. This desk is made by the brand Gus* Modern, and what can I say—it is just so beautiful. In all honesty, I wouldn’t say that it was the easiest piece of furniture to put together, but I think that was mostly due to the fact that we were installing it on 60-year-old wood panelling that isn’t straight, and because John and I are terrible at math/measuring. It took us a little over an hour to get the desk mounted to the wall, but once it was done, we stepped back and fell immediately in love with the look. It’s amazing how quickly frustration fades when you’re faced with such a gorgeous end result.

My Wall-Mounted Desk And Office Nook

My Wall-Mounted Desk And Office Nook

My Wall-Mounted Desk And Office Nook

I wanted to mention that one cool thing in terms of installation is that the desk comes with paper templates so you know exactly where to drill the holes that allow you to mount your desk to the wall. I don’t know how we managed to screw it up with a template, but we did. Don’t let that put you off, though. We really are that bad at hanging stuff on a wall, haha…You’ll do better than we did because the desk comes with everything you need to make the process as easy as possible.

Anyway, the shelves of the desk are fully adjustable, which is great for my décor-hoarding ways. I filled them with books, plants, a stack of my favorite home décor magazines for inspiration-gathering, and a couple other odds and ends. I appreciate that the shelves can be adjusted up or down whenever we want without much trouble at all. The desk shelf is also adjustable, which I just now realized means that we can turn it into a standing desk!

The desk is very comfortable to sit at, which is probably due in large part to our new Sicla Chair. This chair is definitely a splurge, but it’s worth every penny. It’s heavy and molded to form around your back and hips. I’ve already spent long hours working from this chair, and it’s the best I’ve ever had. No exaggeration! If you think you’ll be spending hours on your Sicla Chair, then I would highly recommend splurging for the upholstered seat upgrade. It makes a big difference, and isn’t that much more expensive.

My Wall-Mounted Desk And Office Nook

As you can see in the photo above, the desk is really slim, meaning you can slot it into a pretty small space without disrupting the rest of your furniture or the flow of the room in general. We didn’t have anything on this wall before, so it was entirely wasted space. I was a little worried about installing a fairly permanent piece of furniture right in front of the fireplace, but the sleek profile of the desk doesn’t block that focal point in the room at all. It has turned out to be the perfect usage of space, and I love that I have a new place from which to work when I’m feeling uninspired in my home office. Can’t you just imagine me writing from my laptop by the fire come winter?! I’m looking forward to that.

Big thanks to Teknion for trusting me to give my honest review of their amazing office furniture, and please do leave any questions you might have in the comments of today’s post. As always, I’m an open book and happy to spill my genuine reactions to anything at all.

My Wall-Mounted Desk And Office Nook

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