Curb appeal I

Since the weather changed to Florida Spring Mode last week, we'd been itching to work on a few minor changes on the outside of the Ugly Duckling. The weather has been gorgeous (of course, now that the roof is all fixed) with balmy temperatures and sunny skies and working out of doors sounded like a great idea. We didn't do anything big. We just tidied things up a bit.

[Before: check out the white cap stones halfway up the porch columns]

There's the husband prepping the capstones. With everything being all white except for the porch floor, steps and lower capstones the porch seemed to be floating in mid-air. So, armed with a gallon of dark grey exterior paint, a broom and some gardening tools we went to town.

First, we cleaned up the weeds creeping up between the pavers leading up to the porch steps. It's something my Mom made us do a lot when we were little and it's like bicycle riding - you don't forget the motions. Heh :o) It looked much cleaner right away, too.

Then husband started to clean and prep the cap stones of the columns while I hoe-ed away on the clumps of patchy grass growing up against the front of the porch.

[There he is, de-glossing the capstones. The lower ones were painted grey but showed paint splatters from projects of the previous owner so they needed a clean and matching coat of paint too]

The grey we picked up is a much warmer grey with a lot less blue. It went on like butter and gave the porch a bit more 'oomph' - just what it needed. There's plenty of paint left - enough to paint the porch floor and steps once we've refinished the porch floor a bit (like filling little cracks and holes left from the railing)

[In progress: Cap stone painting in progress]

I'm thinking about tinting some white exterior paint with a sploosh of the grey we used on the cap stones to paint the bottom part of the columns. That should help ground the porch even more and give it some more substance.

Stay tuned for Curb Appeal II - the sequel !