Earlier this week I shared our in-progress porch.

Well, we finally finished the upstairs (paint-wise), so I thought I’d update you with the more finished look and share more details about the process.

It seems like the general consensus in the how-to-paint-a- porch community is that nothing really works well. The paint eventually peels, chips, or cracks no matter what you use. Well I don’t accept that. I mean, I’m not looking for a 1o year maintenance free option-just something that looks nice for a couple of years and maybe needs touch ups now and then. After some research, I decided against any kind of oil based products and porch/floor paints. These are designed to dry very hard which doesn’t allow for expansion/contraction of the wood. If I was painting the floor I would definitely use the porch/floor paint, but none of the surfaces I planned to paint are subjected to foot traffic. I thought the best choice for the job would be  a standard latex exterior paint.

To prepare the porch for paint, we cleaned it using a deck cleaning solution and a scrub brush. When it dried, I applied Minwax High Performance Filler to the large cracks and any very visible nail holes. That stuff is no joke- it smells completely toxic and only has a 10 minute working time before it dries hard as a rock. I sanded all the filled areas plus any other areas that looked rough, then I primed everything with Zinsser Interior/Exterior Waterbased Primer. I allowed the primer to cure overnight and over the next few days applied 3 VERY thin coats of Behr Premium Exterior Semi-Gloss in White Fur.

Unfortunately we can’t really get into stripping and re-staining the floors until next week, so try to ignore the worn stain and paint drips.

Pardon the glare streak in the top right.

So bright! A friend of mine said the paint makes everything look bigger and more grand. I’m down with that! Here’s how the house looked before. Sorry I don’t have a good wide shot of the house now, I’m planning on doing it soon I promise.

What do you think?

8 Responses

  4. Front Porch Refresh…DONE!

    […] never seems to get done (like that’s never happened before!). It started with a fresh coat of white paint on the railings, followed by the sanding and staining of the floor. Just when I was in the groove staining, the […]

    Reply
      • Rachael Evans

        Just clean up any peeling areas with some light sanding, but you don’t have to completely remove old paint 🙂

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