I didn’t do any major projects over the holiday weekend, but I was busy. But I’ll tell you that. I’m close to finishing up these outdoor projects and getting back to some indoor projects for a few months because it’s getting way too hot to spend my days outside! But I really want to reach a certain stopping point before I go back in. I still have a few projects I want to complete and I want to do a little bit of cleaning up outside because the front of our house is about to look so cute and clean and I want to keep going until these few things are done. And then I’ll come back in the fall and do more. Hopefully in the fall I can actually section off some planting beds and plant a few plants in the ground. It’s far too hot to plant anything at the moment.
Anyway, here’s what I got done over the long holiday weekend. I had the front sidewalk pressure washed and that alone made a huge difference. I hadn’t pressure washed our sidewalk in a few years and it looked really dirty and dirty.
I couldn’t believe how dark and dirty it had become and now it’s so fresh and clean.
And while I had the pressure washer out, I also wanted to try and do something about our new curbs. If you remember, a few months ago the city ripped out all the old, damaged curbs on our street and installed new curbs. I’m really excited about these new curbs, but I’m less excited about the fact that they’ve become bright white.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if they had put new curbs on the entire front of our house, but they didn’t. I got half new and half old and I thought it looked really strange. So I pressure washed all the curbs in front of our house, both old and new. The old ones were pretty easy to clean, and the new ones aren’t quite as bright white anymore. A lot of the white stuff (presumably salts from the curing process) has been washed off, but the concrete is still very light. It looked great when wet, but when dry it was still very light. I would like to find a way to make it blend in better with the older (and now clean) concrete. But at least it’s better than it was. It’s still bright, but at least it won’t blind you when the sun hits it.
Next, I cleaned up some things. Y’all, now that I’m a very messy DIYer, my porch baseboard looked great when I finished it, but the rest of the area looked like a junkyard.
So I spent quite a bit of time cleaning it all up. After everything was pressure washed and the dirt removed, it looked so good!
Next I decided to remove the white where the trim meets the porch boards. Since I redid the original porch, this horizontal board is white like a baseboard. And I hated it. So I cleaned it up and painted it the same gray as the house. Unfortunately it looks lighter than the house as the color of the house has obviously become a bit darker over the years. I’m going to try mixing some paint and see if I can get it closer in color, but at least the white is gone. I think it looks much better in gray.
And then I finally tackled a project that has been on my mind for the last year, ever since I finished my walk-in closet. The vent for the dryer is on our porch. It’s not ideal, but it just had to be that way. But so far it has been bright white, which of course attracts attention. You can see it in this photo between the two pillars on the front steps. And you could also see it if you walk up the sidewalk to the house.
So I taped brown paper around it and spray painted it a color that better matched the trim. It doesn’t fit together perfectly, but at least it doesn’t scream for attention from the street view. I still need to find a way to cut it so that the cut edges of the paneling aren’t visible.
But from this perspective, it’s definitely less noticeable now than it was when it was bright white.
And finally, I decided not to replace the columns this year. I may have to do it in the future, but like I said, I’m ready to finish these outdoor projects as quickly as possible, so I didn’t want to tackle such a big project now. Instead, I decided to repair the areas of rotted wood and give them a new coat of paint.
I started by cleaning as many rotted areas as possible and then used Minwax Wood Hardener and a chip brush.
I had several areas like this on the columns, so I had to repair those before I could repaint.
This is one of the worst areas.
So I dipped the brush into the wood hardener and pushed the brush as far into the rotted area as I could. I did this several times, let it dry for about two hours and then repeated this process.
Once dry, I filled in the areas of rotted wood with Bondo wood filler.
In some areas that were really bad I had to apply a few coats and sand in between.
In the places where there was no rotted wood, just small gaps, I used Plastic Wood exterior wood filler. And then I did quite a bit of sanding.
And that’s as far as I’ve come. I still have a lot of sanding to do, then I have to prime and paint.
But this was much quicker and easier than rebuilding the columns from scratch, and I think I can get a few more years out of it. And if I keep up with maintenance and do a little caulking and painting every year or two as needed, they might even last a lot longer. I just have to remember that no outdoor project is a “do it once and forget it” project. The exterior facades of houses always need regular maintenance because they are so exposed to the elements.
I’m trying to get all these little projects done. This includes replacing my fallen string lights that you see in the picture below and the last project I do before I go in will be staining my porch with pine tar and linseed oil. I’m really hoping to finish all of these outdoor projects by the end of this week and then finally get started on the storage space. If it goes as planned, I will start early next week.
However, I really enjoyed working on these outdoor projects. It was a very welcome change from working on the rooms in our house. Once the weather cools down I won’t be able to wait to get back here and do a few more projects. I really want to finish some planting beds!
