I hope you had a lovely August! School started for us two weeks ago, so we’ve moved into the maelstrom of buying school supplies, planning lunches, and signing up for sports. But, first, I have to finish my list!

In July I knocked quite a few things off the list. So when August began, my list looked like this:

1. deep clean downstairs bathroom (and make it easier to clean in the future)
2. buy replacement rug for downstairs bathroom
3. clean out fridge
4. paint window over kitchen sink
5. seal countertops
6. finish sealing outdoor furniture
7. repaint handrail outside back door
8. touchup paint on kitchen cabinets
9. paint stairwell and replace picture frames as needed

I should have tackled these remaining outdoor tasks when summer began, but the heat has been so brutal in Virginia that I haven’t wanted to spend time outside unless I’m by a pool. The mosquitoes are terrible, too.

Soon enough the weather will turn, though, and when it does we’ll be ready and waiting with these outdoor pieces.

This year, I had plans to refinish our outdoor coffee table and our picnic table. Here’s a “before” pic to show you what we were dealing with:

For these outdoor wooden pieces, I used a handheld orbital sander like this one to remove the old polyurethane.

The most important thing when using this tool is to apply firm, consistent pressure. When it skips (as it does several times in the video above), the sander can take off the old varnish unevenly, which can make the end result look dented and discolored.

Once all the varnish was gone, I wiped off all the dust. Because I love the color of this wood, I didn’t add color with a stain. Instead, I simply sealed the natural wood with spar urethane, allowing the natural color of the wood to shine.

I added sooo many coats of spar urethane! Probably at least 8 or 9 coats. This table sits outside all year, and rainwater and snow accumulate on top of it, so it’s important to make sure the wood is protected.

We gave each coat at least 8 hours to dry and then swiped the top with 400-grit sandpaper. Then I wiped off all dust before applying the next coat of spar urethane.

The final result looks pretty good! And it wasn’t hard at all — just time consuming.

I followed the same process for the top of our outdoor picnic table John built years ago. While I was at it, I noticed the pergola was looking shabby, so I touched up its green paint, too. (It’s painted Basque Green.)

It felt like such an accomplishment to move the picnic table back to its spot — now we’re ready for business!

But I kept finding more things to do! In front of our house, we have an outdoor couch that John built in 2018 or 2019, and its varnish was peeling. I sanded it with the intention of redoing the varnish, but when I painted a new coat of varnish onto the wood, it looked splotchy and discolored. Eventually we gave up and took a trip to our local Sherwin-Williams store for a paint that would cover the messed-up varnish. After a bit of disagreement, we settled on Rookwood Red. I used a high-powered primer and then painted on three coats of red paint.

The end result looks pretty good, I think!

The final thing in this extreme and ever-growing to-do list was to paint the yucky railings outside our back door. I’m almost embarrassed to post this “before” pic, but here it is. Yikes.

I cleaned the area and then painted the railings with some exterior white paint we had in the garage. The whole area looks so much better. It’s not crystal-clean or perfect, but it’s definitely passable.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to enjoy a frosty beverage while admiring all my hard work. Come on, cooler weather, so we can use our outdoor spaces!