Porch Clean-Up

Today we are having gorgeous weather so I decided to put off whatever else needs doing and work on shaping up the exterior of our house.  Our front porch has looked terrible since the day we moved in, mainly from the peeling blue paint that is everywhere.  The porch was painted in the past without primer, which is tempting, but never works out in the long run.  I decided to go get some paint to spruce it up after scraping all the old stuff off, and while I was at the hardware store I picked up some flowers for the pots laying around in our garage.

Here is the before picture of the porch

I should have gotten a close up of the peeling paint, but you can see it’s not in the best shape.  After taking all the old paint off, I primed the porch and then did my first coat of “weathered cement” (that’s the color).  I don’t know if it really came out looking like weathered cement, but maybe that comes with time.

After finishing with the painting, I looked up and of course, there was Striper trotting across the porch.  I yelled, and he looked at me and then lifted up his foot to check what was going on.  Next, he hopped onto the window sill, licked his feet, and then walked the other way on the porch.  During this time I had a broom stick trying to steer him off.  He ended up walking back and forth three times (trying to avoid the broom) before I could lure him off.  Here he is leaving the scene of the damage.

After painting over the paw prints and then waiting for things to dry AGAIN, I put the furniture back along with the new plants.

I actually think it looks a little bit blue in this picture, but it’s really more of a tan color.  At least I hope it’s not blue since that’s what I was hoping to get rid of!

While I was doing the planting I added some flowers to our back entrance, and it looks much happier with this little touch.

The final accomplishment for the day was cleaning out the garage.  I don’t have a before picture because I only went out to get the pots, and that turned into a 2 hour cleaning project.  If you can believe it, there was carpet in our garage, and it was a really horrible dirty carpet (much worse than the house if it’s possible).

So I was pleased to get rid of that and then organize the rest of it so I will actually be able to find things.  I have to put up a picture just because I love organized things, and I love seeing the clean cement floor!

Next I want to get rid of the metal railing that’s on the porch…  don’t know if I need a permit for that, but I might try it and see if anyone says anything.  Oh, and putting in a garden bed is on the list too!

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Hidden Potential

Last week the time came to get rid of the dusty, smelly carpet in the living and dining room.  I decided at some point that I could not walk across it barefoot one more time, and I couldn’t take the smells drifting from the carpet into the kitchen.  I’m not sure what was hidden amongst the 30 year old fibers, but the heat and humidity were really bringing out the worst in it.  Jimmee had warned me not to start another project in the midst of the other things going on, but he was out of town for a week and I had a little free time on my hands so I thought I should go ahead and get a head start.

There was another reason I felt compelled to pull up all the carpet ,and it starts with the floor refinisher coming by to give me a quote.  I had pulled up some of the carpet in the dining room to show him what he would have to work with, and he thought everything looked fine.  As we were discussing the details, he informed me that animal urine is one of the worst things for wood floors, and it can really make the project more expensive if he finds spots like that under the carpet.  At this exact moment, Kitty (out dog), walks into the room, walks straight past us to the carpeted area, squats and pees.  There was no hesitation, she just walked out right in front of us all and relieved herself.  She acted like this is her usual routine, and I was horrified and the floor refinisher was horrified (he tried to keep taking like nothing had happened but i could tell).  Bottom line, the carpet had to go… very quickly.

This is the room pre-carpet pull up….

The next photo is of the large mirror that Jimmee took down before he left.  There was nothing good about that mirror, and I definitely didn’t need to see myself up close every morning walking past it.  It was a little too much for us, but there was a very nice man who came by our trash and was so happy to have it for his house.  He tied it to the top of his car and was on his way.

The last picture of the room is with the wallpaper coming down.  This stuff just peeled right off… some of the glue had turned to dust and so the paper was already falling off.  Other parts of the glue had turned to stone instead, and that stuff was a killer to get off.

The last two pictures are of the beautiful hardwood floors we found underneath of the carpet.  I’m a little sad because I took pictures of the whole process, and now those pictures are nowhere to be found on my memory card.  I really like my camera, but I’m beginning to question it’s worth if it can’t keep up with my pictures.  Sometimes they’re there and sometimes they’re not, and the other day some came back from a year and a half ago.  So I now have pictures of Jimmeee and I with some Christmas light displays and no wood floor pictures.

oh, and bear in mind this is before the re-finishing so they will look like new in a couple of weeks…

the last picture is of our wall color choices.  We picked one called “Rope” by Valspar for the top and a color called “Pale Bloom” for the lower wood half.  This week is painting week so I’ll post some pictures next week of the results!

(the color we chose is in the top left corner)

Hope you guys enjoy and let me know what you think!  :)