Deck Restoration in Chicago, IL

Five separate deck and balcony areas wrapping a Chicago home — front deck, front balcony, side balcony, back upper balcony, and back lower balcony — added up to 595 square feet of pressure-treated pine that the seasons had worked over thoroughly. The back of the house told the worst of it: an upper balcony whose old eaves and wall framing had deteriorated past the point of repair, and a lower balcony frame quietly rotting because an enclosing wall had been trapping moisture underneath it for years with nowhere to go. The staircase off the lower deck had been built on two stringers where code requires three. None of it was catastrophic from the street, but up close the structure needed more than a coat of stain.

We started by cleaning and power washing every surface, including soft washing the accessible undercarriage of the back upper balcony, then stripped the old coating — a hard one that resisted the process — and got into the rebuilding. The upper balcony came down to its frame: decking demolished, debris hauled and recycled, framing inspected, then new pressure-treated pine flooring installed along with a railing assembly running about 39 inches tall with upper and lower rails, handrails, and 4x4 Montgomery decorative spindles. Custom casements were built onto the two corner posts — roughly eight inches wide — and topped with large ball finials. On the lower balcony we rebuilt the frame and skirting and cut twelve six-inch round vents covered with metal grid, six across the front and three on each side, so the structure could finally breathe. The staircase got a third stringer and new treads and risers. The ground-level back deck was stripped to the frame — floorboards, treads, risers, and railing assemblies removed — then rebuilt with new pine flooring running perpendicular to the joists with a perimeter board, and the railing assemblies re-installed. A small bracket was welded to re-secure the lower deck's metal railing to its columns. After full power sanding on all horizontal surfaces and light sanding on verticals, we finished with three products: solid Benjamin Moore WoodLuxe Leather Saddle Brown on the front deck, front balcony, and side balcony; semi-transparent Rymar Ember on the new lower balcony wood and the upper balcony floor; and untinted white solid on the railings and fascia, with the fascia caulked and stained to match the existing white.