Projects

Before we took our recent trip to Utah, when my sister Natalie came up from DC I put her to work. Good sister, I know. 

We had been planning on tackling our front porch and kitchen counters. We were able to do both, though the front porch took a lot longer than I had originally thought. Our next door neighbors were in the process of painting their house so I had asked for some tips from their painter. He suggested that I strip the paint off and stain the porch. I was slightly hesitant because painted porches are so charming, but the end result is gorgeous! Here is a shot of what our front porch looked like... even though this was back in March:

 

Yeah, it was in bad shape. So one of the painters took a serious stripping tool and went through layers of paint to get it to the raw wood. Meanwhile I sanded all the rails and spindles to prime and paint.

After hours in the heat (insane heat!) and sun sanding, priming and painting, we were ready to stain. It took two coats of stain and it still looks gorgeous weeks later. Very pleased.

Next up was the kitchen counters. We used a product made by Rustoleum called Countertop Transformations and I'd say it worked fairly well. It took around 5 hours or so to actually apply all the stuff which was a three step process.

Here is the before shot of our boring white formica countertops:

We sanded and then applied the base coat to the counters.

Then we heavily sprinkled on the chips covering every square inch of the counter. It then had to dry for at least 12 hours. The next morning we vacuumed up the excess chips.

Then we sanded down the chips so that the surface was smooth.

Lastly we applied the top coat that took an entire week to cure. So it was a good thing we were out of town and Ben didn't have too much cooking to do for himself.

Here is the end result. We re-caulked the backsplash to the counter and then around the sink, so it looks a lot better than before. Now it's on to painting the walls since I'm no longer a fan of the yellow. It's a good thing I've got Natalie here for at least another week.