Lars the handyman

I've mentioned hiring a handyman, Lars Dahlin, to do a few things around our house. I posted recently about our discussion to fix a few leaks, but what Lars and I talked about a lot was cleaning the deck. He's an expert at helping restore island decking to clean condition.

Note: not our deck!!

Lars' secret is a long and patient washing with a scrubber, followed by Thompson's Water Seal. This will brighten and clean up our deck, and lock in the new look for at least a few years.

Sooz and I really want the deck to look less grey, so we are going to ask Lars to do that for us. I found a photo that represents the kind of change we want to see.

The other thing Lars and I have talked about doing is painting the front of the house. I've blogged about that ad nauseum, so I won't go into it any more here. Suffice it to say we'll be using the medium-grey linseed oil paint, and there will be a lot more on that subject coming up!