Front Porch Reno: The Floor

My goal for the beginning of summer was to entirely re-do our front porch. When we moved in it had dirty cream walls with cracks everywhere, including all over the pillars, which are one of my favorite parts of the porch. It also had a black with white specks carpet that I’m assuming was extremely dirty but was hidden well since it was black. Does anyone else get freaked out by the idea of cleaning or touching someone else’s dirtiness? It makes me cringe just thinking about it. But I guess that’s expected when you buy a house, huh?!

I knew from day one that I wanted to do an extreme makeover on the porch, but last summer was filled with staining furniture on the porch. Literally, we had our huge bedroom suite on the porch so I could sand/stain it all. Which reminds me I still need to write that huge post. Why is there not enough hours in the day?

Well this summer I finally got to tackle the front porch project! This is by far the biggest project I’ve done by myself for the house. And when I say by myself, I mean by my self. Charlie would have helped if I asked, but I really wanted to go at it alone.

Take a look at what my view was a couple weeks ago:

Yep. No words needed here.

Here’s a better view of the carpet. If only you saw it in person.

And then came the carpet removal. Went great until we realized our utility knife wasn’t sharp enough to cut the carpet so we had to make a Lowe’s run to get a knife specific to carpet cutting. Which actually turned out great because we got an awesome Kobalt one that I totally recommend.

And the carpet is gone! By ugly carpet I will never think about again after I write this post! Pretty sure I danced a little after that thing was gone.

And then there was paint. Funny story. I did some research on deck paints and decided I wanted either Olympic Rescue It deck paint or Rustoleum’s Deck Over paint. Since this is indoors it should last longer than normal. I got my hands on a $5 GALLON of Olympic’s Rescue It deck paint at Lowe’s. Yes you read that correctly. Normal price is $35. Cha-ching! Well, the only problem was I wasn’t a huge fan of the color. But I really want this paint to fill in some cracks and coat the porch since the paint itself is really thick. I of course got the paint, taped off the porch and started with the trim.

And then I finished. And I really didn’t like the color. I was going to just leave it at first, but I’ve put so much effort, time and money into trying to make this porch something I love so I decided it was back to Lowe’s I go to get more paint.