Progress On Front Porch & Front Exterior Projects

But anyway, here’s what I got done over the long holiday weekend. I got the front sidewalk pressure washed, and that alone made a huge difference. I hadn’t pressure washed our sidewalk in a few years, and it was looking really grimy and dirty.

I couldn’t believe how dark and dirty it had gotten, and now it’s so fresh and clean.

And while I had the pressure washer out, I also wanted to try to do something about our new curbs. If you’ll remember, the city tore out all of the old, damaged curbs on our street and poured new curbs a few months ago. I’m really excited to have these new curbs, but I’ve been less than thrilled at the fact that they turned bright white.

It wouldn’t have been so bad had they poured new curbs across the entire front of our house, but they didn’t. I have half new and half old, and I thought it looked really strange. So I pressure washed all of the curbs in front of our house, both old and new. The old ones cleaned up pretty well, and the new ones are now not quite so blindingly white. A lot of the white stuff (presumably salts from the curing process) washed off, but the concrete is still so bright. It looked great when it was wet, but once it dried, it was still really bright. I’d love to find a way to make it blend in better with the older (and now clean) concrete. But at least it’s better than it was. It’s still bright, but at least it won’t blind you when the sun hits it.

Next, I did quite a bit of cleanup. Y’all now that I’m a very messy DIYer, so when I finished my front porch skirting, the skirting looked great, but the rest of the area looked like a junk yard.

So I spent quite a bit of time getting all of that cleaned up. With everything pressure washed and the mess cleaned up, it was starting to look so good!

Next, I decided to get rid of the white where the siding meets the porch boards. Ever since I did the original porch makeover, that horizontal board has been white like a baseboard. And I’ve hated it. So I cleaned it up and painted it the same gray as the house. Unfortunately, it looks brighter than the house because the paint on the house has evidently gotten a bit darker over the years. I’m going to try to do a little paint mixing and see if I can get it closer in color, but at least the white is gone. I think it looks so much better gray.

And then I finally tackled a project that has been nagging me for the last year, ever since I finished my walk-in closet. The vent for the dryer is on our front porch. It’s not ideal, but that’s just the way it had to be. But until now, it has been bright white, which of course, draws attention. You can see it in this photo between the two columns on the front steps. And it could also be seen as you’re walking up the front sidewalk to the house.

So I taped brown paper around it and spray painted it a color that more closely matches the siding. It’s not a perfect match, but at least it doesn’t scream for attention from the street view. I still need to figure out a way to trim it out so that the cut edges of the siding don’t show.

But from this view, it’s definitely less noticeable now than it was when it was bright white.

I started by cleaning out as much of the rotted areas as possible, and then I used Minwax Wood Hardener and a chip brush.

I had several areas like this on the columns, so these are the ones I needed to repair before I could repaint.

This is one of the worst areas.

So I dipped the brush into the wood hardener, and shoved the brush into the rotted out area as much as I could. I did this several times, let it dry about two hours, and then repeated this process.

Once that was dry, I used Bondo wood filler to fill in the areas with the rotted wood.

On a couple of areas that were really bad, I had to do a couple of coats, sanding in between.

On the areas that didn’t have any rotted wood, but just had small gaps, I used Plastic Wood exterior wood filler. And then I did quite a bit of sanding.

And that’s as far as I got. I still have a lot of sanding to do, and then I’ll have to prime and paint.

I’m trying to get all of these little projects done, which will include replacing my fallen tape lights that you see in the picture below, and then the final project I do before heading inside will be staining my front porch with the pine tar and linseed oil. I’m really hoping to wrap up all of these outdoor projects by the end of this week, and then I can finally start on the storage room. If things go as planned, I’ll be starting that at the beginning of next week.

I have enjoyed working on these outdoor projects so much, though. It has been a very welcome change from working on rooms inside our house, so once the weather cools down, I’ll be very anxious to get back out here and do a few more projects. I really want to get some planting beds done!