Mom and dad stayed overnight at our house with the children last weekend while Lori and I snuck away to L.A. for a very brief getaway. Upon our return, I asked my parents "If this were your house, what's the first thing you'd work on?" They pointed to the moss on the back deck. I hadn't really noticed it, but they said that, untreated, it would destroy the deck.
Today I cleared everything off the deck and then ran a screwdriver between each board to loosen the moss. Of course, it also loosened some paint. And there were plenty of places where the paint was already coming up. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised - it has been at least six years since the deck was painted and while they did a really nice job flipping the house inside, I'm not sure they were as well versed in what to do outside, judging by some of the other places where the house needs repainting and by some of the shrubs that were planted inappropriately close the edge of the sidewalk and grew to intrude. (Some we've removed, some are still waiting for us to remove them, but I trim them back regularly, but that makes them look bad.)
So, scraped loose paint, used a push broom, even my favorite tool, the leaf-blower - that was really great at blowing away paint that wasn't adhering to the deck at all.
Of course, then that meant getting out a hammer and nailing the deck boards back in.
Next will probably be sanding, and then repainting.
Oh, and the rainy season is supposed to start tomorrow at 11 am. I suspect at some point we'll tarp it off and then I'll take a day off from work and Lori and I can paint.
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