Easy Front Porch Makeover

Porch Makeover Overview

For anyone with an outdoor space containing concrete, this is a must-see project! Concrete stains easily and can look really bad after a few years of being exposed to the elements. This is exactly what happened to my front porch.

Even after giving it a thorough power washing this year, it still looked stained and dirty.

Before

After

Prepare for paint

I decided it was time to paint it. I began researching concrete paint and found one that I was confident would hold up for years to come. For an outdoor project like this one, a paint sprayer is the way to go. No matter how well you clean it, if you use a roller or a brush on an outside surface it’s going to get dirt in it, potentially ruining your finish.

To paint the porch floor, I first used painter’s tape around to create a barrier. Though the Wagner sprayers have little overspray, I didn’t want to chance getting any on the siding. Once it was taped, I sprayed on my first coat of paint in a dark gray color. You can see my supervisor was paying close attention to what I was doing.

Step 1

Begin Painting Porch

I began this project using my Wagner Studio Pro sprayer but finished it with my new FLEXiO 5000 sprayer that arrived as I was working on this. My sprayer gets so much use I wanted to upgrade.

The idea I had for my porch floor was to have it look like wood planks by using a painting technique I had done once before on a bedroom wall in my house. After my first layer of paint dried for about 6 hours, I applied skinny painter’s tape in a 1/8” size. I spaced them evenly apart and used a laser level to help me get the tape on in a straight line.

This next step is not one I usually do, but because this was outside and I was working with heavily textured concrete, I thought it would be a good precaution to take. I used a small roller and the same color dark paint and rolled over the tape lines to help seal them into place. This step will ensure a crisp line when the tape gets removed later. I wasn’t too worried about dirt in the roller at this point since I had a freshly painted surface that I was now working with.

Step 2

Top coat with paint sprayer

Lastly, I used my sprayer and sprayed a final coat of paint in a lighter gray. The concrete on the porch goes up on the side of the house a few inches under the siding. For that area, I also painted it with the lighter color gray paint. You can see here how little the overspray the FLEXiO 5000 produces.

I let that dry and slowly began peeling up the painter’s tape. It’s an amazing transformation if I do say so myself! I had friends visit a few days later and one of them asked me if the porch was wood. Success!

Step 3