We stopped at Plant Depot and bought some oleanders to plant along the driveway…This was our first visit to Plant Depot next to Western Auto and really liked their selection…Not  ABC or Bryan’s mind you, but good prices and healthy plants…Budget wise, landscaping has been an afterthought although we had hoped to plant fruit and palm trees…What we don’t need are papaya trees…Nope, we have these in abundance, compliments of a rasta guy who worked on the house and decided to start a garden for us. Besides papaya he planted okra, watermelon, and some herbs…Unfortunately, the weeds took over leaving only the papaya…The papayas are healthy and producing a lot of fruit which the birds just love…We were able to grab one before the birds got to it and it was tasty…

We found these wall-mounted solar lights at Sam’s Club and thought they would be great for the driveway…They come in packages of four and we mounted the other two on the boulder wall…They don’t provide a lot of light but enough to illuminate the driveway at  night…And the best part is we don’t have to pay WAPA…

We used teak oil to finish the stairs…Although it’s an outdoor grade  penetrating oil we wanted the extra protection due to the tropical climate…The two coats really darkened the wood and made it look richer and aged…The only glitch was finding a matching stain for Mr. Peter’s pine handrail (which is actually starting to grow on us)…

This one surprised us as we carried scaffolding from the deck to the driveway…You’d think it would have run off when we came out the door, but nope, it just sat there and stared at us and waited until we could grab the camera…

We had about 10 gallons of Total Wall stucco left over from doing the house and it sure has come in handy…The pool guy needed some to finish the pool and we used it to repair a few chips in the plaster and to cover some epoxy drippings  from when Junie installed the shutter pintels…But we used most of it to stucco the planter that Matric built when they did the driveway…Even after sitting a year, once mixed, you could not detect a change in color…Cap instructed me on how to apply it and even dropped off a special plastic trowel used to finish Total Wall…

We wondered if we would every see this day…Over the past few months we’ve talked to no less than six people about hanging our shutters…Some never got back to us while a couple were ridiculously expensive…The waiting paid off though because Cap’s shutter guy, Junie,  was looking for some extra work and gave us a great price…It’s amazing how much shutters can dress up a house…

Brought these down on the plane and was flagged again by TSA for bag inspection…56 zinc plated 12″ strap hinges with 6″ screw hooks weighing over 100 pounds…The 12″ steel strap hinge is rated to carry a load of 150 lbs., so probably a little overkill  for our 45 pound shutters …Both Seachest Hardware and East End Lumber sell the same hinge but we didn’t want to take a chance of them not having enough so we ordered them on-line from Ace Hardware…And saved about $5 a hinge…Seachest also sells a more weather resistant galvanized 12″ strap hinge but they cost about a 1/3 more than zinc…And if you really have deep pockets you can get stainless steel…In any case, we opted for the cheaper zinc but added extra protection with a coat of Rustoleum primer and a black finish coat…

Well, it sure looks good!…The advertised benefits of staining, besides the improved appearance, include water resilience,  mildew resistance, UV protection and durability…What I didn’t consider, although clearly obvious afterwards,  is that a waterproofed deck can pool water when wet and can become slippery… and the UV protection, while protecting the wood from sun damage, can make the deck hot…Yes, another lesson learned…

How many times have we said this only to be disappointed by the glacial pace of progress…But having just returned from another marathon working trip I can honestly say that we are down to ONE  project…tiling the entryway…and then we can finally wave the checkered flag…During the past two and half weeks we stained the decks, painted the underside of the upper deck, oiled the stairs, hung the shutters, total-walled the new driveway planter and hung the utility room door…Oh, and Cap’s drywall guy finally returned to re-finish the powder room walls that he mistakenly thought were going to be tiled so he never bothered to do a skim-coat which left a rough finish…But we begin with our first project, again the low hanging fruit, staining the decks…So off we go to Sherwin-Williams to buy the stain…Having dutifully done my research ahead of time we decide to go with waterbourne Semi-Transparent stain that will color the deck while still showing the wood grain…We select the color Mission Wall which is actually pretty close in color to our floor tile…Next stop Home Depot for deck cleaner and the fun begins…

Matric sent us some more pictures and we couldn’t be happier with their work, in particular, the retaining wall at the entrance…Can’t wait to actually park in the driveway and not have to worry about spraying rocks at the house trying to get out…