House in the Works—Beginning with the Screen Porch

It was the first thing we’ve really done here at our new place, and by new, I mean we’ve lived here well over a year.  Until we sold our other house, though, we just didn’t feel we could jump whole-heartedly into any big projects here.  Heck, I didn’t even do any small projects, like painting walls, because it felt like everything hinged on making big future decisions about an addition which we were waiting to do until the other place sold, and I saw no point in painting the living room when it is possibly going to become dining room and then what color would I even want? 

We’ve kept the original Magic Eye wallpaper, the ceiling–level corner shelf thing (??), and the fancy

chandies as is this whole time.  So basically everything, but just living in it as it was the day we moved in as seen here, was on hold.  Until now.  Yippee!  Walton House sold, permission granted to progress.

The screen porch is a great area for us to spill over out of our tiny house for additional space.  When the weather is nice, it is nice.  I’d go as far as to say nearly ideal—the only thing is I just wish it was bigger.  Anywho, it was painted the same ol’ same ol’ that practically every other exterior surface on this whole farm was painted, and that is this color I not so warmly refer to as Fake Cedar Orange.

Since this back porch door is essentially our main door to the house, for both us and company, the porch floor gets lots of traffic.  That floor looked dirty

 

no matter how thoroughly I scrubbed it, so new paint had to happen.  I already had some porch floor paint around here that I had picked up as a bargain at Wal some time ago called Tile Red.  I decided to just go with that since it was handy the day I got a bug to start painting.  Our steps outside that you can see above were looking really rough, so I started with those.  At first stroke, I thought Oh no!  This is going to be a mistake.  My Tile Red was going on as Lipstick Pink.

Once it dried, though, and the kids came home from school and said, “Hey, Mom, you painted red?!,” I knew it was ok, in fact, maybe a good color choice.   Gary actually complimented me on the color.  Winning! and I didn’t even pore over paint chips and specifically choose it, so there you go.

Once I had the floor and doors red, I could totally visualize the trim in a dark brown. I got some Walnut Bark mixed up at Home Depot and painted the three sides of the tiny vertical slats of trim with a kids’ paint set paint brush and that took about forever.

After, see how the slats kinda just blend now?:

    

 

I wasn’t planning to paint this originally-exterior wall that the porch was built onto, with the lovely electric meter and telephone box as part of the wall decor, but you know how once you start these projects, all the old stuff looks even worse?  So I painted the wall with my trim color brown, including even the under-venting from the pre-porch house roof.  The only thing I didn’t paint was the porch ceiling itself which is of raw lumber and maybe I should have.  But I didn’t. 

I did scrub down all the screens inside and out and wow, those held a surprising amount of dirt.  It just looks so much better all the way around.  Nothing like having clear views!

And can I tell you, I have not yet been struck down dead for painting over the permanently mounted Ten Commandments plaque left by the previous owners  and removing the Jesus on a crucifix hanging over this door.  Now I’m still gonna do something creative with that little corner there, something beyond adding my tin star that says Howdy.

 

You might want to just glance quickly or you may get caught up in the Magic Eye wall.  Or get blinded by the glowing fancy chandy.

  

So, now I am loving the porch now even more than ever and I already loved it while it was Fake Cedar Orange and dingy as all get out.  Adding on the screen porch has to be one of the few smart moves ever done on this house, and, unfortunately, we haven’t found many others. 

Next:  roof and deck re-do.