Thank you so much for all your great comments on my mailbox dilemma post yesterday! So many great suggestions! I am eager to get started on it and even took a trip to a discount grower’s outlet yesterday and got some beautiful plants. So maybe my project will be done in the next week or two. And of course I will share it here with you! 
So here is the next project in our series on “Sprucing up the outdoors for Spring.” You can catch catch up on our past projects, “Cleaning out and beautifying the flower beds” and “Planting color-filled flower pots” by clicking on those titles.
The past two weeks though I have been taking a break from the dirt and flower beds and working on my front porch. This post will be part one of two as this is the sprucing up part of it and I will show you the decorating part of it in part two. I worked out there this week invoking every bit of my Southern roots on my front porch and I can’t wait to show you!
So here was my front porch the first week of April. Not too bad you think, right?
Let’s get a little closer. Pollen, dead leaves, aging wood, etc. Oh, and a door that needs to be repainted – that might have to be in part three!
Oh, and this is just gorgeous right?? We had this outside pole replaced at the end of the summer last year because it had rotted at the bottom. It was pre-primed, but I never got around to painting it (or filling in the new nail holes, spackling the gaps…)
I had repainted the white rails and re-stained the deck part of the porch two years ago. BUT that was when we had bushes that were overtaking the porch and I wasn’t able to get to the front of the porch at all to stain the decking boards or to paint the white rails. So I decided to just re-do it all and I should be good for at least another 2 years.
I did the rails first and it honestly didn’t take long at all – maybe 2 hours?
Then the next day I stained the decking boards. I just re-used the same stain I had used before but I did darken it a little with some black and brown paint to take away some of the “reddish brown” and make it just a more “dark brown.”
Here is the deck freshly stained and the rails freshly painted white! You can see in the corner too that the railing looks much better than before.
Nothing like freshly painted white rails and dark stained deck and that water beads up on when it rains! And the fact that I don’t have to do this job for at least another 2 years
I know it is hard to see but it really did make a difference on the deck. I love that the water beads up on it now. That is when you know the wood has a good seal. And I think it is a little less “reddish” now too especially once it dried fully.
You can definitely tell a difference with the rails! Amazing what a little white paint can do! By the way, I just used leftover paint from past years on the rails – off the shelf, Behr outdoor white paint.
I would love to hear what projects you have been working on! Have you planted any flowers this spring, painted outside, cleaned up something?
{cj}
Looks great!! Paint is a powerful thing! Can’ t wait to see how you decorate it!
thanks! 🙂 Yes, paint is amazing! Just wait till you see the mailbox – I missed our house today cause it looks so different ! LOL!
Christina, do you ever sit down???? It looks amazing, friend! You always do such a great job!!
Our shutters are now a gross faded green color. I don’t wont to replace them. Any (easy) tips for sprucing up faded shutters.
spray paint!! seriously… not sure how easy they are to get too – can you lean out the window and unscrew the screws, reach them easy? If you can get to them – there should be just a few screws attaching them. Take them down – pressure wash – then spray paint. If they are plastic or wood – get spray paint specifically designed for that. a few coats, let them dry, then put them back up and they should look good as new 🙂
Wait till I share my mailbox re-do next Wednesday – I am still amazed at what spray paint can do!! 🙂
unfortunately, yes, probably too much. 🙂
Not sure where my extra energy or motivation is coming from the last few weeks, but I am making use of it and going to bed VERY tired every night! 🙂 Having a week without babysitting probably helped too. Probably some of it is my own stubbornness to actually get done what I said I would and what I want to get done this month, some is the beautiful weather we are having and the knowledge that when June gets here I won’t want to be outside doing all of this, some is once I get started on projects it feeds my desire to do MORE! AND I love working on stuff outside – planting, cleaning, decorating, mowing the grass, clearing out trees, putting in new beds. I just love it all. 🙂 Sure would be nice if I loved cleaning my house as much.
Oh, and since you are needing to take it a little easy these days, I figured I would use this time to try to catch up :b
You’re so clever!!! I would have never thought to add paint to darken the stain. It looks so nice …. Love the contrast with the stain and white railing! You did great!!!!
I probably saw the paint added to stain idea online. 🙂
thanks for commenting on the contrast…I like that too 🙂
Our neighbor has gorgeous flowers around her mailbox. Just simple garden wall blocks stacked in a circle two or maybe three layers high and ONE beautiful purple perennial that kinda spills over the sides. Love it. Hubs has been noticing it too and wants to do something to our mailbox. Gotta love neighborly inspiration. =)
can’t wait to share my mailbox upgrade/makeover – amazing what some paint can do. 😉
hope to work on the flowers this week 🙂
Sorry just realized that I was back at the porch post and not the mailbox one….that being said I love what paint and stain can do to a porch/deck. It’s time to do ours again. Yup, it’s been two years. I was kinda putting it off until the pollen calmed down…at least that was the excuse that I was telling myself. =p
I waited for that too. It is almost like we have had 2 pollen seasons. we had the aweful yellow dust – then I painted – now we have that pod type pollen every where and more yellow dust. Glad I got it down in between 🙂
I like doing it often as it doesn’t take as long each time then. This year went super quick – a little over an hour for the railing and under and hour for the deck (not counting pressure washing beforehand) 🙂 And I broke that up and did it on 2 separate days too 🙂
I love the transformation of your stuff, simple but elegant… Wow!
Thanks, Evelyn!
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts about sprucing up the outdoors for spring.
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Hi, What is the dark stain that you used on your front porch? Is is so rich looking and gorgeous!
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