Project Balcony: Step 2

Our balcony boards are now as water-proof as the hull of a boat!  Or, I should say, they should be...  This weekend, we finally got to put the marine sealant onto the balcony boards.  The product we used was Old Masters Spar-Marine Varnish.  The contractor, Russ, got it for us...  Apparently, Pennsylvania doesn't like marine sealant because of some chemicals in it or something and it's not that easy to get your hands on.

The weekend was supposed to be a bit milder in temperature than it has been lately... This meant we could be outside without freezing our butts off.  Unfortunately, our plans were thwarted because our Saturday morning projects took longer than we estimated and it was getting too late to do the boards outside...  The sealant specifically says that the product should not be used within two hours of sunset.  When we finished our morning projects, it was 3pm and sunset was around 5pm...  Change of plans!  Let's do the boards inside...  But where?  We now have furniture filling the living room.  Well, there is that extra open room upstairs.  But how in the world are we getting 12-foot boards up those stairs?!

And so began the fun...

The "hole" in the floor proved quite handy!  The "hole" is actually original to the house and was intended to let the heat rise from the fireplace which is on the first floor near the hole...  Anyway, so my mom had the job of picking up the boards from the pile in the living room; she would pass the boards up through the hole.  My dad was waiting at the top and would grab the boards, keeping them from hitting the ceiling on the second floor.  Aaron was waiting in the door to the master bedroom to guide the boards, keeping them from hitting the door frame; after the board was through the hold, Aaron would stack the boards in the bedroom.  (I clearly had the important job of laughing and taking pictures...!  Hehe!  Okay, I really did help when I wasn't taking pictures - I helped guide the boards to Aaron and assisted my mom with the last row of boards so they wouldn't drag across our floor.)

Anyway, so after the fun of getting the boards to the second floor, Aaron got them laid out (well, half of them because that's all that would fit) on the plastic sheeting so he could work on them.  (Photos: Left to right) The first thing to note was that the can specifically said to stir the product well and to continue stirring throughout, so I figured we'd start with a picture of Aaron carefully stirring the varnish.  Next, we've got Aaron showing us how to apply the varnish...  Pretty basic - paint it on in a nice, even coat.  Finally, we have another angle on Aaron varnishing the boards...  (Okay, the last one was just for fun!)

The sealant adds a bit of gloss to the boards and it did have a slight ambering effect, as the can warned may happen on light-colored wood.  Fortunately, I love the ambering effect as it darkens the wood a bit which I like! 

Boards Before Sealant

 

Boards After Sealant

Aaron got the first coat done on Saturday afternoon.  We opened tons of windows and turned on all the fans to clear out the fumes.  The varnish says it dries to the touch in 6-8 hours and you should wait 8-16 hours before re-coating, but the best thing to do is to let it dry overnight.  The long drying time really lengthens this process...  So Aaron was able to do the second coat on Sunday morning.  This time, we had more time to let the fumes clear out before bed which was nice since we could still smell the fumes pretty well at bedtime on Saturday night... 

At this point, half the boards are done (with Step 2 anyway).  Aaron will work on the first of the two coats on the second half of the boards tonight...  Okay, that was confusing!  Let's put it this way, he can do a coat tonight and the second coat tomorrow or thereafter and we'll be done with Step 2 (that's the important part anyway)!

Once Step 2 is officially complete, we can move onto Step 3 which is painting the underside with a coat of oil-based paint.  Thankfully, paint dries more quickly than this varnish and that step should (hopefully) be a bit quicker!