Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Summer project!
I have found a purpose in life: my front porch. The other day, while horribly nesting and PMSing I decided I hated our front porch. It is grody, the paint is ugly and it looks like noone loves it. There's also a substantial amount of lead paint chipping off and falling down. It makes me ill.
It's also not a very pretty place to hang out, and quite frankly that is the whole purpose of a porch in my eyes, so WTF?
I aim to change all of these things this summer.
I forgot to take a before picture because I literally freaked out and started painting all within 10 minutes.
Before from Google Maps:
See how it's all white and gray? You know what shows footprints and mud and crap and cracks? You guessed it, white and gray. also, the flowerbox was only coated once so it looked awful, parts of it were rotting off, and most of the paint on the steps had flaked off because they didn't use exterior paint.
Here is a shot of my work in progress (sunday am)
As of last night:
You can't see it, but HN did a bunch of magical stuff to the flowerbox and he replaced the rotted parts with new wood, then I sealed, primed and painted it. We also decided to paint the long board up top red, because as HN says "it's the right thing to do" and you know I'm about doing the right thing.
Next up is me looking into safe paint stripping for lead paint. There's babies a million on this block, so no sanding or chipping and there's cheap people in this house so no paying lead abatement people to sand or strip. I think I'm just going to get out my hazmat suit, throw and overnight coat of Removall on that bitch and go get 'er some morning. Supposedly it binds everything into a crazy jelly mess that you just scrape off and dispose of properly, without anyone having to breathe it or eat it or get developmentally sad.
Then I'm thinking a darker, brownish grey for the stair tops, sides and porch. Something a little lighter for the banister (we're currently undecided as to whether to paint it or get a whole new one) and then something super cool on the ceiling (but that's way low on my list)
The columns will be painted something light to match the banister, with perhaps a little "painted lady" action on the top.
All this while training a puppy and saving a neighborhood kid from teenage motherhood. This is going to be the best summer ever!
It's also not a very pretty place to hang out, and quite frankly that is the whole purpose of a porch in my eyes, so WTF?
I aim to change all of these things this summer.
I forgot to take a before picture because I literally freaked out and started painting all within 10 minutes.
Before from Google Maps:
See how it's all white and gray? You know what shows footprints and mud and crap and cracks? You guessed it, white and gray. also, the flowerbox was only coated once so it looked awful, parts of it were rotting off, and most of the paint on the steps had flaked off because they didn't use exterior paint.
Here is a shot of my work in progress (sunday am)
As of last night:
You can't see it, but HN did a bunch of magical stuff to the flowerbox and he replaced the rotted parts with new wood, then I sealed, primed and painted it. We also decided to paint the long board up top red, because as HN says "it's the right thing to do" and you know I'm about doing the right thing.
Next up is me looking into safe paint stripping for lead paint. There's babies a million on this block, so no sanding or chipping and there's cheap people in this house so no paying lead abatement people to sand or strip. I think I'm just going to get out my hazmat suit, throw and overnight coat of Removall on that bitch and go get 'er some morning. Supposedly it binds everything into a crazy jelly mess that you just scrape off and dispose of properly, without anyone having to breathe it or eat it or get developmentally sad.
Then I'm thinking a darker, brownish grey for the stair tops, sides and porch. Something a little lighter for the banister (we're currently undecided as to whether to paint it or get a whole new one) and then something super cool on the ceiling (but that's way low on my list)
The columns will be painted something light to match the banister, with perhaps a little "painted lady" action on the top.
All this while training a puppy and saving a neighborhood kid from teenage motherhood. This is going to be the best summer ever!
Monday, June 6, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
