Stay Warm In Fall and Winter on Your Deck With These Houzz Ideas!

Snow and cold airs are here, but when there’s a small break in between the snow fall you should still be able to go outside and enjoy your outdoors.

These are some ideas gathered from our Houzz page, which have features ranging from a fireplace to a gas powered heater, to electrical ceiling heaters. There are some pretty imaginative ways to heat up the deck and there’s a solution to fit any budget.

Read more

How To Convert Square Feet to Linear Feet

Infographic-quatro

The lumber industry has a lot of terms that are often very tough to navigate especially if it’s the first time anyone considered buying wood. Most wood products are sold per piece or per square foot. Often a lot of people won’t know how to convert from square feet to linear feet and if they order amounts per the square foot then there will be a very big shortage of material. Luckily we do provide a handy dandy square feet to linear feet calculator that’ll do the hard work and a page that explains what lumber sizing is! But, have you wondered how exactly the calculation happens?

Read more

Wood of The Month: Persimmon

Persimmon is a native tree species to North America and is most commonly known for its fruit rather than its wood. Persimmon is actually part of the Ebony family and is commonly referred as White Ebony, because the tree is comprised of a lot of white sap wood with a small core of darker heartwood.

Read more

3 Easy Steps To Maintain Your Deck in Fall

Fall has arrived and winter is knocking at the door. A lot of times we shut the doors and focus on what are we going to do in order to stay warm and cozy and don’t even think about our outdoor spaces.

Believe it or not, this time is very crucial in the maintenance of your deck especially if you want it to continue looking beautiful for those warmer spring and summer months. It’s pivotal that you sweep off dead leaves and wash down your deck from time to time. Leaves that are left on the deck can wind up in between each deck board. This can then continue to accumulate and develop into a serious drainage problem when the snow begins to pile on or the rain starts to pour. How bad of a drainage problem? Water can begin to collect on the surface of the board, and with nowhere to go, can lead to the cupping and warping of your deck boards.

Read more

Tifft Street Pier in Buffalo, NY

Buffalo has been generating a lot of buzz surrounding new public works that have been revitalizing the historical industrial districts for the public. The Tifft Street Pier and boardwalk is one of the projects that has been recently completed, and is now open to the public to enjoy. The beautiful Tifft Pier has a floating dock that allows pedestrians to experience being surrounded on all 4 sides by water from Lake Erie. There are benches, and also accommodations for fishing.

Read more

How to Zombie Proof Your Home!

It seems like it’s inevitable, the zombie apocalypse is coming. So what are we to do when this doomsday approaches? We’ll zombie-proof our homes, of course! Now you may be wondering why you’re on a decking blog reading about zombies, but if The Walking Dead has taught us anything, it’s that we can live amongst …

Read more

Wood of The Month: Cocobolo

Cocobolo is a stunning and unique hardwood that has become a prized material among woodworkers. Chances are you’ve seen this wood in many artisan products such as jewelry, executive pens, bowls, furniture and instruments! Cocobolo is a dense oily wood which polishes to a high gloss without any finish, a feature not many woods have. These oils present a challenge if you’re looking to glue Cocobolo, but using acetone to wipe down the joints will draw out the oils allowing you to use a two part epoxy to adhere pieces together. Cocobolo isn’t used in wind and string instruments solely because of its beauty. The wood itself has wonderful tonal qualities that help create a crisp sound.

Read more