Friday, July 3, 2009

What a difference paint makes.

I've been busy, and the blog has not been very active because of that, but here's one of the things that I was working on in the interim: a repaint of the front porch. This was one of those tasks which wasn't immediately necessary, but because I offered to do much of the work, I was allowed to do it.

My mom sometimes uses the porch to do work, and it's not exactly the most inviting place to do that. Mostly, it had become a place for furniture that didn't really belong in other rooms. Something had to be done to make this into a space that someone would actually want to spend time in.

After ripping up the carpet, we discovered another layer of carpet. Though this layer was in decent shape, the carpet pad below had disintegrated. The plan was to paint the floors anyways, so this discovery wasn't a huge setback.


The first part of the project was to paint over the beadboard ceilings. The white immediately made the space feel more airy.


The trim was re-painted, and the walls were painted this light green color. At this stage, I remember wishing that the paint was a little bit darker, because I'd felt like the room looked a bit washed-out.


Lastly, the floor was repainted in a light grey. Again, the paint was a bit light, but we're going to get a rug to give the room a little more texture and dimension.

There are a couple other to-dos: Curtains for the east-facing wall, a new light fixture for the ceiling and adding another chair (more on that project later) For right now, the space is much better, more inviting and something I'm glad I worked on. One job that you can't really see in any of the photos, but was necessary, was replacing the broken sash cords in the south-facing windows. But now, the porch is not only fully-functional, but also looks better!