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Showing posts from September, 2012

The Porch ~ week 4

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I've been averaging about 4-5 hours of sanding every Saturday & Sunday. My hands have blisters; my arms, back & even legs hurt after using my orbital sander for such long periods of time.   This is the difference between sanded, on the left and non-sanded on the right. I've been working on the porch rails too... this is what it looks like after being sanded and primed.   (below: after one hour of sanding) New blogger puts my photos in a different order... grr (below: this is what the rails looked like before sanding ~ yuck)   I need to fix this corner. I believe the previous owners removed the boards so they could put some sort of brace under the bricks. This corner slants quite a bit... I used 16 of this sanding discs today!   I need to finish sanding a small section tomorrow, then prime for painting.

Porch progress

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Friday evening I sprayed the deck cleaner on, waited 20 minutes, rinsed and scraped the top layer of paint off. It made a pretty big difference! Saturday morning, I was up bright and early with the sander. I sanded for about 2 hours! The lattice was in bad shape, but I got all of the paint flakes removed. I hate sanding against edges, because a splinter went under my nail TWICE on the same finger. It drew blood and I cursed a lot. Yuck... Got the floor all smooth... I love both of these products! Well worth the price. I filled in several deep scratches like this.... I got it primed yesterday afternoon. And finished painting it a little while ago. I love this color! I'm going back out the afternoon to sand down the 2nd layer of wood filler. Then I'll prime the section by the door.

Cleaned the porch...

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This is how my porch looked yesterday. The spring decor was extremely dusty! There were enough cobwebs & spiders to scare all the little children on Halloween. I decided I am going to clean/strip/paint my huge wrap-around in 3 sections. Mainly cause I have a lot of crap on my porch and don't want to haul it all to the garage. I removed all the chairs & washed them down with the water hose. That's my grand-daughter Jewell supervising from the 'mountain' as she called it. After blowing all the dirt & debris... This deck spray worked pretty good! I loved how I was able to hook up to the water hose. I sprayed it on and let it soak for 10 minutes. Then scrubbed it with the push broom. Sprayed again. Scrubbed again. Rinsed. Section 2. Section 3. Hopefully tomorrow I can strip the paint in Section 1 I need to figure out what color I want before the weekend!

Upcoming repairs

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Definitely need to repair/strip and repaint the wrap-around porch before it starts getting cold. Hopefully I can start this next weekend. I checked out the Benjamin Moore Arborcoat Water Exterior Stain for deck & siding on Friday... and I must admit, I love a lot of the colors. However, going with a stain will be many many more hours of work then stripping and re-painting. I also need to repair the cement steps... this is the worst one. But, I think before I jump into those projects, removing all the spring/summer decor and switching over to fall is a must. I love fall decorations and look forward to it every year.

Home Inspiration

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I have the ugliest box beam ceilings ever... they were painted this hideous yellow eons ago. (This is a *before move-in* photo.) I started stripping the redwood quite awhile back, gave up and started doing other projects that don't involve inhaling paint fumes from a heat gun. So, I know from that little adventure that I just don't have it in me to strip the paint off of the coffered ceiling. It would take 30 years or so... So, I've decided to do this. Like exactly. I love the white beams and red walls. I will need to sand down the paint drips and prime the horrid shiny yellow, but I know this is how I want my dining room to look! I went back and forth between navy blue and red several times. I'm pretty sure I'm going with the red... but we'll see by the time I get around to starting this project. photo via: This Old House I'm also considering doing something that never even crossed my mind before finding a photo of a stenciled floor on Pinterest. These are...

Paint organization

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Some people use their sun-room for eating... I use mine to store paint supplies because it gets hot here and I don't want them to go bad in the garage. I spent a good portion of my Saturday putting together these steel book shelves, so worth $45 apiece! I can actually find all my paint supplies now! No more digging around for a paint can opener or stir stick, thank you very much. spray paint addiction much? I love love love Rust-oleum; it is the BEST my new spray gun, cause I don't want to paint a box beam ceiling by hand...

A pretty Palm Tree

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I felt it was just a little bit plain on this side... so I was back out there again on Monday... I have the worst luck ever when it comes to digging. I always find an old sprinkler system pipe or 4" wide oak tree root... I bought this cute little palm tree with a $25 gift certificate I had I am aware my bricks are unlevel, but I was too tired to be ocd on this project. I'll fix it eventually, I'm sure of it!