Paint the Dock

Getting the dock hauled over to our new cabin and into the water was just the tip of the iceberg.  We still had a technicolor dream coat of surfaces to work with.

The light blue on the far end is made of fiberglass boards.  It wasn't damaged, but it was really scratchy, almost painful to walk on.  And certainly too rough for little knees and bums playing on the dock.  The middle is a green treated sheet of 3/4" plywood, and the piece closest to us was some sort of manufactured board.  The top layer of this board was peeling, and the bottom was rotting out.

In fact, you can see above we marked with a rock where the big hole in the dock was so no one could trip.  That's a pretty fool proof plan- no?

So my first step was to remove the old rotten board.  This should have been easy- just remove the screws, remove the board.  Unfortunately many of the screws were rusted, stuck into place, and there was no budging them.  So began the tedious process of chipping out the wood around the screws.  I used a combination of my Dremel Multi Max, and a good ole chisel and hammer, which if I'm being honest worked the best.

One down, about 10 more to go.

When all the holes were finally bored out, I was able to lift the old sheet from the dock.  Then I used my MultiMax with a metal cut blade to cut off and remove the rusted in screws.  Once all the remnants of the old section were removed, it was time to carry out my new sheet of green treated 3/4" plywood.  I don't have any photos of this because I was by myself, while the kiddos were sleeping, attempting to move and haul heavy 4'x8' sheets of wood.  I had my hands (and back) full.

Here's the new guy.  (Don't worry- it gets better.)

I drew lines across with a straight edge at the support beams so I knew where to drill in my new screws without missing.  One quick step avoids a half dozen moments of frustration.

Admittedly this looks pretty rough.  But I have a plan to restore this deck to one, cohesive surface.

Disclaimer: Rust-oleum has not sponsored this post, nor do they know who I am. 

I've never used this product before, but I thought it would be excellent for a dock surface as it would provide a little extra anti-slip traction, as well as a waterproof coating.   It was certainly a new experience- I'd liken it to painting with cake batter.

 

 The kit comes with this honeycomb roller that gives you the finished texture.

 

Besides being thick and a little foamy, the paint was really easy to use.  In just 20 minutes I had my first coat on.  It says right on the package that you need a minimum of two coats, and they were right.  The first coat looked pretty sparse and had me worried. 

I waited until the next day to put on coat number two, right before it got dark so it would have the whole night to dry.  More cake batter- nom nom nom.

The second coat worked like a charm, and filled in all the little unpainted blotches.   Viola!

Ignore those darker spots across the middle.  Captain Chaos had just been doing some mean swimming and jumping off the dock, so it was still wet.

Let hit you up with a little before:

And after:

Upgrade- no?

Next year we're going to work on creating a platform and pushing this out a little farther into the water.  We'd also love to add another section that comes out to the right like an L for more swimming and lounging.  For this season though, we're calling it a success. 

Has anyone else used these Restore or Behr Deck Over products?  They are not cheap, but in my case it was exactly what we needed.  I'd be curious to hear from any of you on how they hold up over time, so let me know if you have the inside scoop!