Painted and Stenciled Front Porch

Hello sweet friends!

I hope you are enjoying Labor Day weekend, and soaking in every last bit of summer!

And we still technically have three weeks left, right? I am going by the calendar over here, because I am not ready to let summer go quite yet! :)

And speaking of summer...I am excited because I finished one of my summer projects, a "to-do" that has been on my list for a long time! 

Our front porch was in truly sad shape when we moved in. To disguise its sadness, I covered it with an outdoor rug~ which looked good...for about one day. But pine needles start collecting and they were almost impossible to remove! Add our three cats to the mix, and it was just not a good option for us.

The porch needed a better fix, but it had to be cheap! And what could be a better cheap fix than paint? ;)

 

To get started, I cleaned the concrete with soap and water, making sure to rinse it well! After it had dried, I primed the porch twice. I used House and Trim Primer by Valspar.

It was the perfect match for concrete!

{After primer picture...Please disregard the funky old sheet I was using for a drop cloth!} ;)

For the paint, I used Valspar's Porch and Floor Paint, which I will swear by until the day I die! This stuff is AWESOME, and is the same paint I used when I painted our vinyl kitchen floor. You can have the base white mixed to most any color they have the formula for, which gives you endless options! :)

I knew I wanted ours to be a nice gray...

...and chose the lighter of these two sample colors.

We are painting our house next summer, and are using a dark gray (similar to the darker sample color) for this. By choosing the lighter gray, I know it won't be too overwhelmingly gray, and the porch color will complement the house! {I can't wait to cover over the dark blue we have on the house now!}

After three coats of gray paint, I stenciled the porch with white exterior paint. The stencil package actually contained two parts to create the damask pattern, but I chose to just use the first stencil alone, and opt out of the second part. I liked it better with just the first half! {And how often is what we actually like best simpler? I don't know about you, but this almost never happens to me!} ;)

The one I have learned about painted floors is that polyurethane is key, and the more coats, the better!

{I called it good after four coats.} 

I love Floor Finish in Semi-Gloss polyurethane by Varathane, and found that it makes for a durable and highly protective sealer for painted floors when I used it on our kitchen floor! :)

I love that I can not only sweep every single pine needle and speck of dirt off the porch, but I can wash it, too! :)

Our porch is not completely smooth, and so it was hard to get the stencil perfect! And, in fact, it isn't! 




But unless you get down on your hands and knees to inspect it, you can't tell! And further more, I have decided to remove the word "perfect" from my vocabulary entirely! Is anything ever really perfect? 

Our porch surely isn't, but it is so much better than it was!

And I am so much happier when I walk up to the front door, and every time I step outside!

So, this is before: 
 



And this is after:




Coming soon: the walkway up to the front porch, which is almost as bad as the front porch was, is getting a makeover. I will hopefully be finishing this up next week, and will be sure to show you pictures when it's all done! :)







{I am linking this to the parties at the following blogs: Tatertots and Jello, Just A Girl, Under the Table and Dreaming, Funky Junk Interiors, Thrifty Decor Chick, and
The Shabby Nest.}

Well, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and thank you so much for coming by!  :)

Blessings to you~

Jenni