Hello friends! I know I say this every time but how did I go 10 months without posting a single thing??! Well, I wanted to do the next post once I finished our porch project. Little did I know that we would start that project in April and not actually finish it until… September. I also promised myself that we wouldn’t start any other projects until after that one was complete so here we are!
Let’s begin with the one where we didn’t do any work ourselves.
Skylight
Since we’re in an interior rowhouse, we don’t have any windows on the side of the house. The top of our stairway was a little dark at times.
Well, we had to get a brand new roof this year. And BOY ARE THOSE EXPENSIVE! We decided to dig deeper into our pockets to add some desperately needed natural light. It is a little unnerving when someone creates an exploratory hole in your ceiling where you can see the sky.
But also you can see the possibilities!!! Can you imagine a beautiful skylight here?
Replacing a roof creates a lot of debris.
But here is what it looks like now! So much light!
So much blue sky and fluffy clouds!!
It is a bit hard to tell but it really does make a big difference. It floods the upstairs hallway and on sunny days, it even illuminates the first floor a bit also. Thambi is also a fan. The top of the stair is one of his favorite perches. He appreciates napping in a sunny spot.
The Big Kahuna - the Dreaded Porch Project of 2019 and hopefully never again
Now on to the Porch Project. I have to say, of all the projects we have done, this one has been the least enjoyable DIY. It was just a lot of tedious work. And it looks like such an easy change to make. But it wasn’t. If you have to do this, definitely just hire someone. You have been warned!!
Phase 1 - Prepping the door area, Spring 2019
Every since we moved in, I really disliked having a screen door. Although it is useful for getting a nice breeze in the house, we barely used it. And I just was annoyed at having to deal with 2 doors all the time. I also didn’t particularly like the look of it. It was just so meh. The screen door also broke in the past couple years. Here’s a pic from 2016.
The front door itself is also really meh. I want to replace it with a glass door but for now, we thought that we would just paint it. After removing the screen door, we had to do a bit of patching and painting:
Here is Mike painting in the window. He actually didn’t know I took this picture, thus the curious look on his face. You can tell that this in the spring time because of the Cherry Blossoms!
The screen door had a slot for mail, so we had to also get a new mailbox. We chose one that was a bit more modern from Etsy:
Thambi approves but thinks now one’s eye is drawn to the peeling paint on the porch. Always a critic:
Phase 2 - Painting the Door
The following weekend, I painted the door a nice, dark grey. I think it contrasts with the white nicely. Unfortunately, I think I chose the wrong kind of paint because it easily scratches and shows the white, aluminum door underneath.
Phase 3 - Evil porch repainting, Fall 2019
Even when we first moved into the house, the porch paint was peeling but you can tell in the images above, that it was just getting worse and worse. We had originally intended to repaint it in the Spring but turns out that one needs multiple days of temperature below 90 with no rain and no wind. And of course, we needed to have plenty of free time to work on the project. Well, turns out those magical criteria were not met until September.
First we had to take the paint off the concrete porch. We originally tried paint stripper and elbow grease…which didn’t work at all. Here’s a random pic of me goofing off with Thambi. High on paint fumes, I’m sure.
Then we rented a pressure washer from Home Depot. It was incredibly loud and smelly but it worked:
Mike taking the paint off, ever so slowly:
A close-up look:
The one thing we didn’t expect is that the pressure washer would take the paint off in little strips and then spread them EVERYWHERE. There still are some little gray strips of paint stuck on our walls outside and in our lawn. What a mess.
After several hours, we had stripped the paint off!
Then we had to patch the concrete, prime it, and put on two coats of paint! I chose a lighter gray because I wanted to contrast with the gray on the front door.
Doesn’t it look so fresh and clean?! Here it is ready for some visitors:
I may put a small outdoor rug and plant out there as well. I think it can be jazzed up a bit still. And here it is decorated for Halloween! Now we won’t scare our neighbors with our peeling porch paint!
Thank God that project is finally done. I hope that paint lasts for a longgggggg, long time.
And now…a puppy picture.
Here Thambi enjoys his much sunnier spot at the top of the stairs. You can tell that it is winter time because he is at maximum fuzziness. What a cutie :)
