Today, I plan to finish this round of deck painting. We have been working on this project since August. Preparing for the painting took a lot of time, but we were nearly finished. For the last part, we have to work on touching up the painting. Once the paint is dried, we can see the spot we missed during the initial coat painting.
Our deck already looks good with the dark paint we picked. There is something we learned about the paint the other day. There are so many types of paint, but for an aged deck like ours, we must use solid color paint on it. We picked a great one. My wife had sympathy for our deck. She still carries Japanese culture, and she automatically sees that things we use also have spirit, sounding like spring from Sanderson’s Stormlight archives, right? It is exciting and fabulous at the same time. Despite our cultural differences, we still married happily.
After breakfast, I’ll work on painting our deck. Unfortunately, we cannot work on the vertical railing supports at this time. That requires serious cleaning and replacement. One of the supports near the top of the railing post was rotten to the point that the support system needed replacing the part. My wife tried to stop rotten by grinding them out and sealing them with the wood hardener; however, she says this is like a temporary fix that needs serious fixing in the near future. Due to the time restriction, she did not want to stop the deck painting process. The morning temperature goes below 50F some days, worrying my wife.
We will start working on the railing and railing support once the temperature rises above 50 degrees F in the morning next year. Of course, we will paint them as well. Once we’ve repaired the steps, more painting will be done in the next few years.
My wife and I have sore glutes today from all the squatting we did yesterday while painting the decking. My toe is feeling much better, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to run again tomorrow. I was able to walk normally by last evening. Putting on socks and shoes has been the most painful task thus far, so it takes me a little longer.
We have been working on our deck for a while. We discovered that the deck preparation required much more work and patience than we initially anticipated. One of the problems we faced was the sap on the deck. We had sap from the maple tree all over the deck in our backyard, and it was a real hassle. My wife, multitasking between work and cleaning, was trying to tackle the sticky mess. The sap stuck to everything, including the tools we were using. While we worked, she mentioned how the sap reminded her of pine resin—the kind she used when playing stringed instruments.
After wrestling with the sap for a while, I reached my breaking point. But our conversation about pine resin gave me an idea. I very briefly played the violin when I was younger, and I remembered that the resin softens with heat. It made me think about how I always warm honey in the winter to make it pliable. I decided to try the same method with the sap. I boiled water using our electric kettle and poured it directly onto the sap.
To my surprise, the boiling water softened the sap right away. I’d expected to have to scrape the sticky stuff afterward, but when I poured the water over the sap-covered boards, it just washed away. There was hardly anything left to scrape! I’ll check the deck again once it’s fully dry, just to make sure the sap doesn’t resolve, but for now, it seems like the hot water did the trick.
It was a pleasant surprise to see how well my plan worked. It’s funny how a bit of knowledge or past experience can spark an idea. I bet there are probably plenty of videos or articles out there on removing sap, but figuring it out on my own gave me a sense of satisfaction that’s hard to beat. I feel like we are pretty ready for painting.
Oh, great! It looks like the rain has finally passed. For the past several days, my wife and I haven’t been able to work on our deck project. The morning temperatures have dropped below 70°F regularly, though it’s still warm enough for painting. However, I can’t help but feel some time pressure. My wife has been reading up on how to restain the deck and learned that the process needs to be done within a certain temperature range. She suggested we aim for early October when temperatures should be between 65°F and the high 70s, a perfect window for the work.
The deck project is something my wife had been planning months in advance. Spring slipped by, though, as her schedule was too packed to get to it, and we missed the ideal weather. Since moving to Nashville, we’ve had relatively dry summers, but the heat here is no joke. Most days reach over 90°F, which is far from ideal for painting a deck. At least we managed to keep the yard looking decent. Once my wife snagged a couple of days off, we used the opportunity to powerwash the deck.
It wasn’t until after we cleaned it that we realized the decking boards were in worse condition than we’d thought. Some were starting to rot, but the old paint had been hiding the damage. My wife researched how to fix the wood, and she hopes to replace the decking in a few years. For now, though, it looks like our preparation work will take longer than expected since repairs need to be made. I’ve been sanding the deck for quite some time, trying to get it ready.
Then, a hurricane hit. It didn’t directly impact our city, but it brought days of rain. Now that the rain has finally stopped, I’m tempted to finish the sanding, but I know better. The boards are probably still soggy, and sanding wet wood is never a good idea. I’ll give them another day to dry out before continuing tomorrow.
Once I finish sanding, my wife is hoping we can paint next weekend. That would be exciting—we’d finally be able to wrap up this project! Of course, there are still stairs to repair, and the path that runs around that corner of the house will need to be redone, but those are separate enough to tackle later. For now, finishing the deck is the main goal.
About two months ago, my wife proposed a few yard projects we need to do this year. Some projects can depend on temperature or seasons so that they can be tricky. For example, she insisted that we do deck staining this year. My wife planned to do this sometime this summer.
My wife usually plans projects for at least several months to eliminate any obstacles to completing a project ahead of time. Her problem is that she needs more time since she is busy.
Deck staining demands many external conditions, which we need to watch for. She told me the deck must be stained when the temperature is 50F to 90F without rain for at least 24 hours. That eliminated substantial summer days. The ideal temperature would be Spring. However, we got a lot of rain in Nashville in the spring, so she did not want to do this project in the spring. So, we have between September and October to do this project.
There is something we can do ahead of time. For example, we can clean our deck beforehand so that the deck will be easy to sand and stain.
My wife combined two projects at once. One was to clean the siding of our house and the deck. She wanted to rent a power washer from a nearby Home Depot so we could do both simultaneously. She took a day off this Friday, Thursday, and Friday of the upcoming week. The following week is a long weekend, so it would be the perfect time for a project like cleaning and washing.
After my run, we did some yard work to prepare for winter and the upcoming projects we have been forming. Today, we wanted to remove any weeds or extra trees that may interrupt our side or deck washing.
Afterward, we got some delicious gyro plates from a nearby restaurant. I also completed my daily chores: bottled kombucha, did laundry, and put it away. So I called, and today was our successful day.
You know, self-assigned chores often require that extra push to get done. But guess what? I nailed it yesterday, completing my entire to-do list! And one of those tasks was bottling our weekly stash of kombucha for my wife and me. You can dive into our kombucha journey on my wife’s blog. Still, lately, I’ve been the one piloting the bottling operation now that we’ve got our system down to a T (pun intended).
Let me walk you through my Thursday-to-Saturday kombucha ritual. Thursday starts with a sterilization spree of the 8 bottles we’ll use. I fill them with water and add a teaspoon of detergent. These bottle buddies then hang out on the kitchen counter overnight. Come Friday evening, it’s tea time! I bring a half-gallon of water to a rolling boil and plop in 8 tea bags for steeping. Once it’s nice and flavorful, I stir in a cup of sugar. After it hits boiling point again, off goes the heat, and it’s left to cool down overnight.
Now, while the tea is brewing, I return to my sterilized bottles, rinse them, and line them up on the counter. They’re all set for their starring role on Saturday. Come the weekend, I fill each bottle with 6 ounces of our favorite juice blend from the store. Next, 10 ounces of fermented kombucha tea is poured in. I then do a quick SCOBY check (that’s Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast for the uninitiated), set aside a cup of the fermented tea, and clean the fermentation jar. Once it’s spic and span, in goes the cooled tea from the previous night. I add back the SCOBY and the saved cup of fermented tea, and voila! The jar returns to our storage room, where it’ll ferment in peace until next week.
Oh, the bottles? They also head to the storage room for a week of conditioning. Post that, it’s straight into the fridge they go, awaiting their moment of glory.
Getting the timing right for each of these steps took some doing, but I’ve got it down. A little pro tip I swear by is optimizing wait times. Identify those stages where you’re simply waiting around—like waiting for the water to boil. Use that time to knock off other tasks—like rinsing the bottles in my case. It’s multitasking without affecting the quality of any single task. You’ll find this especially useful in cooking, too. Ever notice how most recipes kick off with “Preheat the oven”? Yep, that’s optimization in action.
We had a carpeted storage room. The storage room has a light, and it was good size room. To make the space more usable, we decided to create shelving units. We also decided to remove the carpet and install a hardwood floor. I am a big fan of the YouTuber April Wilkerson. She has filmed so many DIY projects and uploaded them to her Channel. I want to learn how to do woodworking or carpentry like her, and this project was an excellent project to start. I was initially excited by imagining completing the project ourselves.
It took several months to start the project because I was procrastinating. I was hesitant to start the project because I felt anxious about starting. I was not ready for this task at all. I was so scared that I am not comfortable with the job. The last time I worked on flooring was a decade ago. So doing this project itself feels very risky because we might screw up the renovation. So, I sat with the idea for a long time without doing anything about it. Murray (2018) pointed out many of us procrastinate for various reasons, and some fit my situation.
Fear of the unknown
Fear of making mistakes
Wanting everything to be perfect or completely ready first
Fear of taking risks
Tasks seem too hard
A little procrastination is merely a peccadillo because it can damage us exponentially. Steel (as cited in Rice et al., 2012) studied the level of performance and mood outcomes resulting from procrastination. Steel concluded that procrastination could relieve anxiety only temporarily. Yet, the participants reported negative moods following procrastination (p. 3). The primary source of my distress was the guilt of delaying the project. The psychological damage impacted my mood; thus, it started affecting the performances of other activities.
Since procrastination can harm us both mentally and physically, why do we procrastinate? I guess just like Steel pointed at (as cited in Rice et al., 2012), it makes us feel better. The problem is the effect is only temporary (p. 3). It is like moving the pile of garbage from one corner of the room to the other corner of the room. The garbage stays and continuously torments me until I remove them. Rice et al. (2012) also concluded perfectionists tend to procrastinate. Procrastination correlates with poor health performance due to psychological distress resulting from procrastination (p. 12).
Procrastination prevents us from growing because it promotes stagnation in our growth. In the modern, rapidly shifting era, we need to acquire skills to deal with new challenges to survive. Murray (2018) said we don’t even see the reason for it as they hide very well. Procrastinating conflicts with our rapidly changing external world just like Homo sapiens were engaging complex planning 100,000 years ago, enabling them to evolve. At the same time, the Neanderthals were resistant to go out into the cold from their comfortable cave (para. 9). Procrastinating is one way for us to conserve energy, but on the other hand, we must start working on more complex tasks to evolve with our rapidly shifting eras.
I gained no benefits from this procrastination. It was pretty uncomfortable sitting with a non-progressed project. I remembered reading Brian Tracy’s “Eat That Frog,” Tracy (2001) recommends eating the ugliest frog first thing in the morning to be productive if you must eat one. So, I decided to deal with my frog.
To overcome my procrastination, I did list the possible challenges from this project to deal with them one by one.
Can I Install a hardwood floor by myself? It has been a long time since I did the hardwood floor installation last time. Since this was the first experience for my husband to install a hardwood floor or a shelving unit, I will be leading this project.
Can I build a strong shelving unit for our storage room? I was unsure whether the method I wanted to use will work for this space.
Which tools do I need to buy?
How long will this project take?
How much will this project costs?
When can I start this project? I will not start this project until October as I was leading a large project at work.
By looking at the list of my challenges, I can overcome these obstacles with some researches. Instead of doing everything at once, do section by section. The project can be broken into two main tasks.
Installation of the hardwood floor
Installation of the hardwood floor
Installation of the Baseboards
Installation of the shelving Units
Installation of Shelving supports
Installation of Shelving units
Paint shelving units
I could deal with the root of my anxiety by researching how to complete the project. So, I researched YouTube channels and other blog posts on installing hardwood flooring, baseboards, and shelving units. I decided to use engineered flooring because it seems easier. We bought the hardwood flooring from Home Depot online. When I was researching, I observed the tools each YouTuber was using. We must get a few tools such as a Miter saw a jigsaw, a level, a Pry Bar, Spacers, and a tapping block. A miter saw can be expensive, but we can use it for other projects.
We decided that the best time to start the project was Columbus day since I knew I would be busy until the last day of September. We purchased tools and materials in small increments over four months until the starting day. We still had four months until the project starting day. We have a compact passenger car, so it was impossible to purchase everything at once. Unexpectedly, having a tiny car created more challenges than any other source. Thanks to my husband’s surfeit of packing skill, we managed to carry all tools and materials we purchased. Later, I found out that Home Depot rents out a truck and will consider renting it for future projects.
Initially, I estimated we would complete this project by the end of Thanksgiving day; however, it took longer due to my stomach problems. We completed the project by the end of last year. The outcome was better than what we had originally thought, even though it was far from perfect. Since we took a long time planning and purchasing materials and tools, it cost us approximately $150 less than I budgeted. We may not have a perfect storage room, but it is functional. The important thing is that I regained my confidence, but I finally managed to remove my psychological distress. I gained satisfaction from completing the project ourselves.
We already have another plan for home renovation. Since neither of us is a professional renovator, it will be another challenge for us. But, that will be another chance to learn something new.
New Hardwood Flooring in the Storage RoomUsed Wall Mounting Technique for Pantry ShelvingCompleted Pantry Shelving
References
Tracy, Brian (2001), Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time, Errett-Koehler.
Murray, John. (2018). Start now, get perfect later: how to make smarter, faster & bigger decisions & banish procrastination. [Skillsoft version] Available from <https://roberthalf.skillport.com/skillportfe/main.action?assetid=149423>
Rice, K. G., Richardson, C. M. E., & Clark, D. (2012). Perfectionism, procrastination, and psychological distress. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 59(2), 288–302.
