A larger job than expected

The Mrs. used this list to plan the weekend. She chose two thing to do this weekend, but one of them we did a little more research into and decided was going to be a warmer-weather thing. So I was left with:

• Clean and stain/seal the playset

This was exciting because I'd never done anything like it before. Thus, it was sure to be an adventure that would take many trips to Lowe's and Ace to complete.

So far, it has not disappointed. We went to Lowe's yesterday and picked up 2.5 gallons of Olympic scrubless deck cleaner and a gallon of Cabot cedar-tinted sealer. I also got a few junky paint roller sleeves and paint brushes that I can throw out instead of trying to clean. It's very hard to clean sealer, I imagine.

I spent quite a bit of time this morning removing swings and plastic bits and covering the big bolt heads and washer with blue tape. The fambly helped. We also dug the sand back from around the bottom so we could strip and seal below grade.

Then it went badly.

The cleaner needs to be applied with a garden sprayer. I went to use up the weed killer in my garden sprayer, and it clogged up. I spent 20 minutes trying to unclog it, then I gave up. It has been clogging a lot lately, like every time I use it, so it has become quite a bother. I threw it the hell out and bought another at Ace. It lasted about 8 years. That's pretty good.

I spent hours spraying this stuff on. It works great, but it's noxious. Smells like bleach, mostly. My sweatshirt got covered in little droplets, so now it's polka-dot. Just in time for Dingus Day, I guess. I planned on that and wore an old sweatshirt, plus fancy safety glasses and rubber gloves. Then I ran out of the stuff, so I had to go to Lowe's to buy 5 more gallons. I'm pretty sure this playset had never been cleaned or sealed since it was brand new, and it took many coats in most places to get it nice and clean.

I picked up another 3 gallons of the sealer while I was there. What the hell. The wood was just drinking up the cleaner, so I'll be lucky if 4 gallons covers it with even one coat.

After I was all done, I had to wash the thing down with the hose for roughly another hour. That's when I noticed that a lot of the wood was very silky with dead fibers. So tomorrow, I'm going to have to get out the belt sander.

It's supposed to rain and/or snow tomorrow. That's OK, since I think I can sand this thing down in about 14 hours, and it probably will only rain/snow for one or two.