a few things around the house...

It has been a strange and bumpy year. We had our second child, a cute little girl, at the end of April. We now share our house with a 2 year old boy and a tiny infant. My family leave was three weeks. I came back to work in the middle of May. At the end of May, I was laid off from my job of 6+ years as a web developer and enterprise architect. It was no surprise. I had been watching the auto industry meltdown in slow motion. I was working on software for car dealerships.

The good news is that I saw the layoff coming about 9 months earlier and was able to prepare. Also, I was able to find a new job just a few months later. So, I didn't feel financially insecure, though changing health insurance without gaps in my children's coverage is a challenge that is still not complete. I seriously hope those clowns in Washington can get us some health insurance reform. A public option would be nice.

During the summer at home, I mostly tried to spend time with the family. We decided to keep the house chaos down to a minimum. That meant no remodeling inside. I decided to go ahead with some outside projects like replacing the back steps.

For the past five years, we have had a back porch deck that had one set of narrow stairs. Whenever we have hosted more than a few people, these stairs became a major bottleneck. The solution was to build two new wider stairs at each end of the deck and remove the old stairs. The rest of the porch remains the same.

When I was done adding the stairs, I decided I must restore the decking. After 5+ years of weather, it was looking dark and dirty. I had read one should never power-wash a cedar deck. I discovered after a little googling that the best way to clean cedar decking is with sodium perborate, better known as color-safe bleach. Yes, you probably already have a box of it in your laundry room. We did. After rinsing down the deck with a garden house, I mixed up a bucket of lovely lavender laundry 'earth friendly' detergent and poured it on the deck. I scrubbed with a push broom, then rinsed with the garden house. Not perfect, but a lot better. Lather, rinse, repeat. After a second round, it looked pretty good. After letting it dry for a couple days, I put down two coats of oil. It looks great. I'm happy I didn't spend a brazilian dollars on expensive mail-order deck cleaner.

Btw, the Home Stupido actually sells bottles of acid for suburban cowboys to pour all over their decks. I'm serious. The directions require you to wear protective gloves, boots, clothing, goggles, respirator, spacesuit, etc. Seriously, WTF?!? I wore shorts and t-shirt while scrubbing our deck with the 'earth friendly' detergent. None of the nearby shrubs died. No one had a flashback.

Some pictures