.Deck Makeover: Phases 3 and 4.

Yesterday I shared the first part of our Deck Makeover, see here, including the addition of stain and shutters.

Today will focus on paint, paint, and more paint plus a little carpeting!

I spent two weekends, many weeks ago, painting every door trim a bright semi gloss white as well as painting four exterior doors a very bright (maybe too bright) yellow. What can I say, it's all rather--cheery :)

To save a little money on outdoor lighting, I bought some ORB spray paint and went to town spraying our existing fixtures. I love how our light fixtures now pop against the white when the original finish blended in.

Now for pictures!

Here is Phase 3: New Exterior Paint on Trim, Doors, and Light Fixtures

Before and After:

More After shots (and sneak peek of carpeting!):

Adam replaced the locks with brand new ones that actually work and come with sets of keys!! Trust me, this is super exciting for our family!

Phase 4: Outdoor Carpeting

When Adam and I purchased our home, part of the deck was unfinished with only plywood as the flooring. We found out the original plan of the previous owners was to install outdoor carpeting so they could easily move a family member who was in a wheelchair. At first we were not on board with carpeting and wanted wooden slabs to match the rest of the deck. Then we realized there is electrical work under the plywood and wooden slabs would allow water and moisture to absorb through. So we decided to just go with the original plan and have carpeting installed. We love it!

Before and After:

More After:

I feel I need to let you in on a few lessons I learned painting exterior doors because they caused me many many issues, phone calls to my dad, and even tears.

I am a confident painter and felt extremely prepared to tackle four exterior doors in one day. I taped and prepped my work stations and got to work.

Here is where I encountered my first problem..

I did such a good job taping off the weather stripping (using my fingernails to actually get the tape pressed under the trim and over the weather stripping) that once my trim paint dried and I pulled my tape off, it pulled my paint off too! I was crushed and it was hands down the most irritating thing that has happened to me recently.

Once my tape was completely off, a good chunk of my paint peeled off as well along the weather stripping. Adam thought it was not a big deal but I am a bit OCD, it's true. So..I had to make it just right.  

Fast forward a bit--I ended up removing my weather stripping, sanding where the paint peeled, and put a fresh coat on. Perfection.

So Lesson #1: Remove weather stripping first. (It is easy and inexpensive to replace!)

My next issue came when I taped off my hardware. At first we did not think we were going to replace all of the locks so I simply taped around them.

Well, after many coats of bright yellow paint, when I pulled the tape off you better believe it pulled off numerous coats of yellow paint leaving the original gray color. I cried. I could not believe with all the time and effort that went into prepping these things were happening.

This is when we decided to buy new locks since the majority of them did not work properly and we did not have keys for any of them.

Once the old hardware was off, I sat with a tiny paintbrush and very slowly added five more coats over the gray. It's definitely not a great match.

So Lesson #2: Remove hardware from door.

Another glorious lesson I learned involved priming the doors. Two of my doors had a very sloppy white-ish primer on them and two doors did not, they were the factory gray color. I decided to save time, I would buy paint and primer in one. Big mistake. The two doors that had no primer took five coats of yellow paint. Five coats--I was painting into the night.

So Lesson #3: Prime all surfaces before applying paint!

Lesson #4: If you scream, curse, and cry all at the same time your neighbors and spouse will think you are crazy and will not make eye contact with you for the next 48 hrs. (It's true.)

I think I covered all of it. Phew. Live and learn, right?

Phase 5 of our Deck Makeover is the fun part--Accessorizing! Come back soon :)

(linking up here)