Thursday August 23, 2007

I’ve been wanting to stain the decking on our front porch ever since David Lee and I screwed it down last summer.  Last week I decided it was time to make it happen.  David Lee brought home sanders and smoothed out the roughest parts and I bought solid-color stain.  After four hours of kneeling on a blitzing hot deck Saturday, I was roughly three-fifths of the way done and out of stain.  It completely changed the look and I had the typical quandry while painting.  It happens every time.  Three boards into it I was all excited.  Wow!  What a difference!  I love this color.  Two hours into the game I was second-guessing myself, the color, the decision to paint and worried to bits that we’d just made a huge mistake. 

We kept Goldi in her kennel until the next morning so the porch had plenty of time to dry.  Monday I went to get more stain.  By the time I got home I realized we had a problem.  I really liked how the siding looked so much whiter on the side of the porch that was painted (as opposed to an orangey-glow on the side that wasn’t) and how the porch looked bigger and more inviting.  I did NOT like how you could see every spot Goldi had touched.  She likes to hang out under the front porch where she gets unbelievably covered with orange dirt.  There were paw prints the length of  the porch only, of course, you couldn’t see them where I hadn’t painted. 

Yesterday I finished staining the porch and barely noticed my sore knees.  (Perhaps that was due to the phone in my left hand.)  Two and a half hours later I stuck the brush in a can of gas, cleaned up the supplies and surveyed the porch.  Lovely and terrible.  Mom was right.  That orange dirt stains!  There is no such thing as just sweeping it off.  Grabbing a bucket, I scrounged around for the greased lightening and started scrubbing.  Slow going.  I sprayed Greased Lightening directly on the wet floor board.  Uh, oh.  Too strong for the stain.  More scrubbing. 

For the next hour, I scrubbed and thought unkind thoughts about Goldi.  I mean, I wanted that somewhat weathered, painted, Southern-porch look I see in magazines.  Dirty, tinged with orange … I don’t recall dreaming of that at all.  And mopping the porch floor, much less scrubbing it by hand, was not something I really wanted to add to the weekly cleaning list.  I thought maybe we could buy one of those door mats that says, “wipe yer paws” to put at the bottom of the steps; but that would mean teaching Goldi to read.  Training her to stay off the porch will be nearly as difficult.  Now what? 

Meanwhile, I think I’d better take a picture of the finished floor.  I’d rather wait until I get the siding washed off; but by then, I’ll probably be back down on my nearly-blistered knees, scrubbing.  And once again muttering to myself about orange dirt and a certain golden retriever.  If you’re thinking of investing, you may want to choose the company that makes greased lightening. 

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