Porch Project: Part 2

If you remember this story we posted recently, we started the process of renovating the porch on the back of our house. Given that it has been 1 week since the start of this project, we thought it was time to share a brief update on how this project has progressed.

While there have been a few noticeable changes to the porch, the progress has been slightly sloooow. In part, this is due to the busyness of our schedules this past week, leaving little time for house-work. Also, this has been a very HOT week in K-town, and so doing any project outdoors (even on the the porch) has not been on the top of our priority list.

Needless to say, here are a few pictures of where we started just a few days ago, and what we've got goin' on now.

Old Porch: Note the carpet, almost-no-paint-walls, and very old hanging light with cord strung across the ceiling.

Porch after some "clean up": No more carpeting or light fixtures, Junk cleared out, and trim replaced around the ceiling.


And here are some pictures showing what has been done this week...

Joey laid DUROCK cement board on the floor in preparation for the tile we are going to lay down. (Please disregard the shop vac and paint stuff on the floor.)

The ceiling has received 1 coat of white paint. That immediately brightened the space and made it feel more up-to-date and cheerful.


The brick wall is the last part of the porch that we got started on this week - although, it is not close to being done at this point. We began applying the first coat of primer to the brick - using a special for-masonry-and-brick-only primer to seal in any grease, grime, or dirt on the brick that may disrupt the pretty paint (the primer has the consistency of elmer's glue). Painting this brick is slightly time consuming. Even with a 1-inch nap paint roller, the roller really only covers the top of each brick and doesn't do much in terms of getting into the cracks and crevices. And so we're filling in the cracks using a thick paint brush, but even this takes a long time. You can slightly see that the brick on each side of the door has been filled in with the paintbrush compared to all the areas that we haven't brushed yet.

I'm praying that once we get this first of primer coat on the wall, that the next coat, which will be latex paint, will be much easier and faster to apply. And after we get the ceiling and brick wall all painted, we still have to paint the other 3 walls, bench, shelf, and interior door and window. Whew! Looks like this is going to take a while!

So, we'll continue to give you updates as we move along in the porch redo process, and maybe the next one will show some larger improvements!

Last, but not least, here's what Spike thinks of the porch so far....

Apparently cats prefer to watch others do the work for them.