When we bought our house I loved that it had a double decker “party” porch.

When we moved in it had green turf carpet, the screens were covered in plastic and the wood paneling was starting to warp. We immediately ripped up the green carpet and removed the plastic from the screens in our initial house demo. This got us through a few years. This year, the wood paneling started to fall off,  get moldy and just fall apart. Not to mention our demon dog [Darth] tried to chew his way through the house. It was time for a face lift. 

If you have a porch and it’s starting to look a little dingy or dated, follow these easy steps to give it a brand new look that’s easier on the budget than an entire new porch! 

To start – some before photos. [aforementioned demon dog makes an appearance]

First we removed all of the blinds, curtains and old paneling.

Since our deck is 2 levels, we wanted the bottom level to be completely screened in and the top level to stay screen on top and paneling on the bottom. This meant we had to knock down some walls to open the bottom level up. This is always our favorite part – demo!

Next, I wanted a cleaner more modern look. To help achieve this we painted everything using Behr Premium Plus Exterior semi-gloss white. We used about 1.5 gallons to cover all the braces and railings, inside & outside. Tip: To prevent the paint from getting on the existing screen we used cardboard pieces and held them up to the wooden braces to protect the screen from errant paint.

After everything was painted 2 coats of white, it was time to tackle the floors. After some extensive research we decided to use Behr Premium DeckOver. It has some negative reviews about chipping, etc. but we figured since our porch is entirely covered and won’t be fully immersed in harsh elements, we should be ok*. Below are the floors before.

*Note: It’s been over a month since we’ve painted the floors – they’ve been through dog nails, a party and mother natures best and still look brand new, highly recommend this stuff! 

First you have to prepare the surface. We used this All-in-One cleaner and scrubbed the wood. Once it was dry you take a small paintbrush and fill in all holes and cracks in your wood with a thick layer of the DeckOver. This stuff is like brownie batter its SO thick.

After you’ve let this dry, you can then go in with a roller and roll the floors in a thick coat. Let it dry for 24 hours and do a second coat. This stuff is AMAZING! It made the floors look brand new.

To wrap things up on the bottom level, we bought a couple rolls of screen and stapled them along the outside of the bottom half. [the upper half had existing screen] We got the “No-See-Um” mesh so you can barely tell it’s there in the photos. We then used white plastic flashing to cover the seams on the outside.

Last on the list was to replace the old, wet, warping paneling in the upper level with new! We chose a white bead board panel [similar here], cut it to size and just used finishing nails to put it up and caulk to cover the holes.

Overall, we’re so pleased with how it turned out. It was a fairly easy face lift that only took us about 2 weeks. We would have completed it faster, but a lot of the work had to wait until after the babe was asleep.

Total cost: $620