Emery has been obsessed with the outdoors since he began to walk so we spent countless hours in front of our home while the world was shut down in April 2020. During that time, I decided to spend my birthday money on a Ryobi power washer to fix our front porch. My mother-in-law thought I was crazy – she gave me that money thinking that I’d get a massage or something! Quite the opposite actually. HA!
Our home was a flip completed by a home builder out of Edmond. It’s clear all the corners they cut to get this house done, but none were obviously when we bought the home! Within months after we purchased this home, the paint began chipping on the front porch. At first I wasn’t too worried but as time when along, you can see how bad it got! The below photos were a year after the home was renovated, just shy of 9 months after we purchased the home (another family owned the home for a few months before they relocated to Texas for a job).
Anthony + I spent countless hours power washing the paint off. I was so determined to get this completed before our daughter arrived. This photo is hilarious as Baxter spent many hours out there with us + would always get tangled up in cords. Dog has zero spatial awareness!
There was at least 2 layers of paint + carpet glue on these steps. The porch part didn’t take as long, but boy did I learn a thing or two about the stairs!
It ended up taking about a year for us to complete this project. Between newborn life + working full time, this wasn’t as much a priority to get completed as it should have been! The major motivation to get this job complete was Annalise’s birthday party.
First step was to power wash the whole thing again to get all the debris off. I filled in holes + cracks with a premade concrete mixture. Then I used Clean + Etch to prep the concrete. I think this is one of the steps that the contractor did not do!
You can see that we were not able to get up all the red paint off the steps. We were able to get the majority up + that was good enough for me! I didn’t get a photo of the primer on the concrete but I use Behr Concrete + Masonry Bonding Primer. Side note: if you are in OKC + would like to use some of this for a small area, hit your girl up. I’d love for someone to use this as we don’t have any other concrete to use it on!
After two coats of Behr Porch & Patio Floor Paint, here is the finished product. I went back + forth on painting it SW Naval like it was originally or going with a lighter gray or stenciling it. It’s a bit difficult as the exterior of our home is a blue/gray color. I do have a brighter, lighter blue to paint the front door, but that’s sorta at the bottom of the to-do list right this moment!
Porch color is SW Ellie Gray but using Behr. I’m so pleased with the way it turned out. Fingers crossed all this hard work will last until we sell this home!
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