The Painted Porch

I love our porch.

It's huge.  It has a great old-fashioned feel.  It's one of the elements I fell in love with when we looked at our house.

I could never stand the grey porch floor and steps.  After a year of wear-and-tear, they weren't looking so hot.

FINALLY, this morning I woke up and decided it was time to do something about it.

I went to our local rental place and told them what I was doing--I made a point of letting them know that the porch is about 28'x8' so I wanted something that would make the sanding go quickly.

Long story short, this is what they sent me home with.  Justin immediately questioned the size of the sander...

One hour later, after only getting maybe a  2' section of the porch sanded, Justin felt bad and went back to the store.

Apparently, sending a nearly 7' tall black man to the hardware store ensures you get the proper tools for the job...

The machine was huge.  It was heavy.  It liked to bounce around.  However, it did an awesome job of removing the loose paint and creating TONS of dust!

In less time than I spent messing with the previous sander, the entire porch had been sanded with various levels of sandpaper...it was time for the new paint!

Last Spring, I was convinced I wanted to paint the porch a lavender color.  Then I realized I wouldn't want to paint it later down the road in case the lavender turned off prospective buyers.  It was time to pick a different color.

I ended up going with Blue Blood.  Not sure how it got it's name...but it was pretty on the swatch!

After putting on the paint, it was a lot darker than I expected it to be.  I'm not sure why I was surprised as it matched up to the color on the swatch.  As I told Justin, I think things are just more surprising after you've been living with a different color for so long.

According to this picture, the porch doesn't look that different.  I'm glad.  In person, the color is much more noticeable--especially once you reach the porch floor.  Best the best part--there are no worn spots on the boards.  The only problem--now I want to paint our metal chairs a different color so they don't blend in.  It's never ending!!!