Painting the Font Porch Steps
I have walked up and down our front porch steps a million times and never even saw them. Does that ever happen to you? Things are so familiar that you don’t even notice them? And then one day last fall I was minding my own business and admiring my flowers when I took this picture...
And I thought, “YIKES! Do the stairs really look that bad?!” I am all for the rustic/chippy/farmhouse look but these were more the lazy/neglected/unwelcoming look! Not the first impression I want to give to people coming into my home! Here‘s a close-up.
Yep, they were really that bad. And just like that, a bunch of work hit me like a ton of bricks (or a set of stairs!).
I wasn‘t able to tackle this project last fall, but I made the plan to paint the stairs and the railings this spring before all the plants grew in and the bugs and creepy things were lurking in the planting beds, since I was going to be standing in there for a while.
The first thing we did was pressure wash the stairs and scrub them with bleach to get all the dirt, mold, and loose paint off. Things always get worse before they get better, right?!
Then I caulked all the joints where there were gaps and anywhere the old caulk had fallen out. This is not the glory work! It’s much more fun when you get to see results for your hard work! Next, I primed the stairs. Now we‘re starting to see some results!
Finally, I painted two coats of exterior white paint in semi-gloss on the stairs, railings, and gate. (As a side note, these stairs lead to my happy place, our front porch. See this post. My sweet husband built this beautiful gate for me when our 2 youngest were under one years old and we had just moved in to this house. We have a little boy who thought he was Evel Knievel and would head to the stairs as fast as he could, with as much passion and enthusiasm as he could muster, the moment you set him down. This gate was the only thing that allowed me some peace back then!)
And now... Voilà! A repaired and repainted set of stairs! (If only it was that fast in real life!) Soooo much better! And now these stairs don’t scare people off, but welcome them in to our home.
And one more before pic...
And after again...
Ahhh! It feels good just to look at them! Now I have to finish painting the railing around the porch but it makes me happy to get this part done! Hope you're checking off some of your projects too as we head into summer!
