Sanding the Porch

Last we left the front porch, it was getting a makeover. A much needed makeover. We have a 113 year old house and a lovely covered front porch, which spans the width of our home. I promised you this year I would show you the porch before and after, since we actually completed this project last summer, and after last week’s before pictures, we’re in need of some progress out there.

Last summer we had a very important moment as DIY-ers. It was both a question and an answer in the same sentence.

We can hire someone to do work at our house?!

For the most part we’ve taken on projects ourselves, but after weeks of sanding and stripping the many layers of paint off the porch floor, we decided we needed help. That very old paint was going nowhere.

Dan had found a local company that did home restorations and improvement so after they came out to look at things and we told them what we were looking for, we decided they were ones for the job. So they moved in with the big guns.

Meaning, very big sanders. That thing was so powerful it actually vibrated the entire first floor.

And they brought all of the accessories to go with the sander. This was about half the amount of floor pads we used when we refinished the floors in our upstairs. The wood in our house is more than 100 years old and not sealed with the products they made these days. It stays on there!

It turns out that the man doing this project for us had to go rent this floor sander because his hand sander was not removing the paint. It made us feel good to know it wasn’t us. We spent weeks sanding and used all different kinds of strippers to remove the paint off the floor and nothing worked.

He told us he had to get diamond crusted sandpaper. Turns out that old paint was stubborn.

After many hours of sanding away we finally were down to the raw wood. It took a couple of days just to get the paint off.

 

It was actually kind of neat to see the porch like this. Of course he had to do the edges by hand and I was just praying it wouldn’t rain and damage any of that exposed wood.

Once we saw it with the paint removed, we could tell more where the damage was and where the repair had been over the years, like here by the steps.

This entire corner ended up coming out since it was rotted. But that will be for another post, so come back then and see more of our old porch makeover. Next up, we pick out a color and the wood got repaired.

Here is the porch makeover plan:

• Remove all the paint on the porch More on that here
• Remove paint on the concrete stairs
• Repair broken wood
• Repaint the porch and touch up any trim
• Stain the flower boxes?
• Get a rug
• Repaint the chairs
• Replace the cushions on the chairs
• Get a coffee table of some kind
• Add decorations like lanterns, pillows, plants and other accessories including outdoor lights

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