Well, we finally got a stretch of weather promising to be nice enough for us to be able to start our porch-painting project! Poor Frank got the hard job of all the high work, which meant standing on the ladder (or the railing) and doing all the brush work above his head! I didn't think to get out the camera until he was hanging like a monkey painting the outside of the rafters, but you surely get the idea. Poor Frank!
After analyzing the things we did right and the things we could do differently from here on, we agreed to try to find a ladder for the outside stuff. Burke, the man who built the porch, lives just three doors down, and when he came by to inspect our work, he offered one of his many ladders and we're surely going to take him up on his offer. We actually made really good progress today. Frank did half of the inside roof, and I did all of the back sides of the benches and railings.
I also did the ballisters and rail on the steps. I included this picture so you could see the stain we're using and how it looks compared to the unstained wood. The unstained part in this picture will be an opaque white stain, which will match our house. Tomorrow, while Frank finishes the inside roof, I'll be doing all the posts in that white. On Sunday we plan to do the inside benches and railings. The floor of the deck and the outside lower trim will have to be the next nice weekend. Whew!
We asked our builder to make a table for us that would match the style of the porch. We had been looking around and couldn't find anything that we thought would work for us, and he agreed. This is the stunningly beautiful pedestal table he built for us. I stained it today too, and it was still fairly wet on top in this picture. Sorry about the drop cloth being all around the foot...I'll take a better picture of it once the deck is done and it's in its rightful place.
Burke's wife knew I wanted to plant hydrangeas (among other things) around the deck, and she had some to spare, so she dug these up for me. They are patiently waiting to get back into the ground, which will be as soon as we're done with the porch, hopefully next weekend. I also want some peonies, but I'm not sure how well they grow here.
Once the deck is done, then I get to decorate it! I'm thinking about some colorful cushions (red and white stripes?), a glider and a small table, and of course a couple of hanging flower baskets. We've also had some hummingbirds flit through the porch, so I think we'll hang a hummingbird feeder as well. Thanks for looking and I hope to have another installment of this saga soon!
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