Last weekend, Andrew and I embarked on the Porch Project. We've been meaning to tackle this project since our home was inspected prior to purchase. We were assured by our home inspector that, though making creaky sounds, the slats of our front porch were solid oak (like all of the other woodwork in the home - this is typical of Craftsman building) and could possibly go another 80 years if properly taken care of.
The porch looked okay when we first moved in - not great, but okay. The paint was a slate blue, which is a little odd for our house since it's a vanilla color with peach and white trim, but it was neutral and thus began the Porch Project's downward slide toward the bottom of our DIY project list. The paint was flaking off in the high traffic areas, but we could live with it. I bought a doormat and called it a day.
And year by year, we kept waiting until fall to refinish the porch. Especially after we refinished the hardwood interior floors in the bedrooms, the porch seemed like an easy-peasy task because, as we told ourselves, "Hey, we know how to do that!" But somehow we just never felt quite up to it.
So last weekend, one of the two weekends left that we have open until Thanksgiving, Andrew and I decided that we'd just casually strip the paint off the porch, sand, and stain - starting on Saturday afternoon and finishing Sunday.
If you've followed by blog since our first string of projects, you're probably saying, "Haven't those dumb kids learned something yet?"
Apparently, no, we haven't.
Of course stripping the paint took 4x as long as we figured it would. First of all, our porch is bigger than we thought. Second, the paint wasn't chipping as much as we thought. And then our favorite non-toxic paint stripper wasn't strong enough, nor was (our brilliant idea!) the power washer borrowed from our neighbor. I went online to check the blog where I'd seen this done (failing to mention to Andrew that when I called it a "3 hour project" like I saw on said blog, the homeowner's porch was roughly a 1/4 of the size of ours). They said they'd used a heat gun to scrape off all the paint.
"A heat gun!" I said. "We have one of those! We know how to do that!" Cheered by the fact that we are 'old pros' at this, Andrew and I went to work.
Our confidence was short-lived. Under the blue paint, there was green paint (the kind of 70's stuff - not a pretty sage green). And under the green paint, there were surprises. Some spots had white. Some spots had a dark brown. Most spots had a caramel colored putty like substance that turned to a gray-black tar when heated. This substance also would smolder if heated too much. This substance was awful and horrible and it was everywhere.
After a full Saturday and most of a Sunday of work last weekend, we had finished about 1/3 of the porch. We promised ourselves that we'd work on it in the afternoons/early evenings during the week so we could sand everything over the weekend.
But life happens, and between coming home late or just being exhausted, by Friday evening, there was still 1/3 of the porch done.
After working most of the day today, I'm proud to say that we finished the other 2/3. But not after feeling like I was in my favorite 1986 full-animated feature, My Little Pony: The Movie. If you missed this cinematic masterpiece, I will attempt to describe the plot (and my metaphor). In MLP:TM, evil sisters put a spell over a volcano and create "the Smooze," which threatens the vitality and beauty of the little ponies. Anyone who is touched by the Smooze can no longer fly, loses magical powers, and also loses, in essence, any a sense of self (the Wikipedia entry for MLP:TM contains this brilliant explanation: "[the Smooze is] an unstoppable purple ooze that will eat and destroy everything in its path. It will also make anyone who is splashed by it grumpy and woeful"). You get the picture, I'm sure. The black tar crap was stinking everywhere on that porch, concealed by layers of paint. Our next door neighbor told us that at one point, our front porch was enclosed and screened in, so I'm not sure if it was an adhesive or just a lethal substance slathered on the floor for fun. Whatever it was, it was awful. And it certainly made Andrew and me grumpy, woeful, and miserable. But like the MLPs, we soldiered on. And to date, no flutterponies needed to come to our aid (shoot...sorry about the spoiler). But in light of our past sanding experiences, I'm attempting to walk into this with an open mind. Anything can happen tomorrow when we rent the sander.
Tonight, Andrew and I are still keeping busy, even though the sun has gone down and there's no more Porch Project to work on. Currently, Andrew is busy working on my closet, and after we eat dinner, we'll be taking inventory to see what we need to buy at our second trip to Menard's this weekend.
Project Closet seems to be coming along quite a bit better than Porch Project.
A couple of weeks ago, when putting away laundry, my closet shelf that previously held all of my sweatshirts came crashing down on my head. Turns out that it's a bad idea to make really big holes in plaster walls, because that causes instability. Adding a lot of weight to that is a particularly bad idea as well. Andrew seemed more upset about it than I did, since this was his first ever "handyman" project in our home, and it was now a miserable failure, 3 years later.
Last week, I went downstairs and found a shelf that Andrew and I had put up in a closet when we rented, and found that the window sill in the closet and door frame could be used to anchor the shelf. Since we have a hoard of small tools, we were able to saw the thing down to fit. Problem solved - for the sweatshirts. However, there was more to the issue.
Some girls like shoes. I like handbags. All of my bags had also been hanging from the shelf (it was one of those wire ones, so I'd concocted an elaborate hanging system with hangers that were made for holding neckties). Because my solid shelf no longer allows for a hanging system, my handbags were homeless, and that made me sad. So Andrew is currently working on securing a beam to the studs on the wall, and then attaching hooks to the beam. In the end, the effect should be an Arts and Crafts-inspired Altar of Handbags. I realize this description is insufficient, so I promise to post photos when it's finished.
And since my husband has been busy at work for the last hour, it would be a kind and loving thing if I finished this post and made the pizza that I said I'd make.
Wish us luck, dear friends - if we survive to tell the tale of Sunday, I'll do my best to share.
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