Front Porch Improvements- Prepping Phase

The first day back to work after a few days off is always the worst. Add that to my normal "end of the month craziness" and I am barely keeping my head above water! So while I should be chugging along at the work I brought home for the evening, I would much rather blog about some projects we have been working on. So without further ado...

Last weekend the porch projects continued. When I removed our old metal fence, it left us with some wounds that needed to be repaired. I already had a stucco patch and color matched our house paint from my house number project. So this project was 100 % free ( well at least that's how it started).

Clearly my house was once teal! 

 Some of the areas had foam pads and adhesive that needed to be removed. We also has several anchors that needed to be pulled out.

 I was able to use the same 8-in-1 tool I purchased for my front door painting catastrophe. It did the trick and easily removed all the sticky residue.

Next I washed all the areas that needed to be patched with warm water and Mr. Clean. Oh, and check out my audience for the day:

Lily LOVES looking out the window! 

Next  was the the patching. I took my time going from column to column patching each square until things were nice and even.

 Even though the stucco dried fairly quickly, I let it set overnight before sanding and painting over my patches. I was very surprised that it covered with only one coat of paint!

To the left as you walk thru the gate opening, before and after. 

While I was patching away, Tim decided to take down one of the MANY lights. We are still pretty uncertain about what we want for lighting in this area however, we both knew the existing lights MUST go!  So down they came!

Honestly, who needs this many lights?

 Here is a before and after with the lights removed:

We simply capped off and covered the electrical box on each column. For now, I like it without lights however the electrical is still there if I change my mind once we get closer to our vision!

So here comes the part of the project that morphs into two additional projects. We decided that since we took down the above mentioned lights, we should really just take down all the outdoor lighting and "start over".  I have been itching to switch out the lights for something less ornate and white, perhaps Oil- rubbed bronze? At this point, Tim also decided he hated our solar lights and wanted to replace them too! I still have to take pictures of the final products and then I will post more on that!