After nearly a year, I finally decided to tackle (with the strong-armed help of husband) the back porch ceiling. Since we moved in more than a year ago, that ceiling has been a boring, primed white color, with a little bit of natural wood showing through. Being a girl raised in the south, that didn’t sit well with me, so high time to change it finally came.
In the infinite wisdom of the south, folks paint their porch ceilings some lovely shade of sky blue. I always thought that looked nice, but in my eighth grade Louisiana History class, I learned why we do that – bugs and insects mistake it for the sky, and so do not make their homes on your porch ceiling. So there you have it, our back porch ceiling here had to be sky blue.
First, we gave the surface of the ceiling a light sanding to smooth out any imperfections and get an even working surface.
Next, I took a soft-bristled broom and swept the ceiling briskly to remove dust, but you can wipe the freshly sanded surface down with a soft cloth to get all of the dust off before painting, otherwise the paint will not stick to the surface.
Then, tape any edges you might be painting against (you do not have to if you are a very careful painter; I am a very careful painter… at least, I don’t choose to tape the edges most of the time). Taping the edges is most important if you do not have touch up paint in the color of the trim you are deciding whether or not to tape.
I started by “cutting in” with a paintbrush; that is, painting all of the edges very carefully so that I could fill in the main area with a roller later. It’s like coloring very carefully along the lines with crayons so that you can fill it in by scribbling as uncarefully as you’d like later and still stay within the lines. It helps to pour a little paint out into a smaller can so that you don’t have to carry around the big (heavy) paint can as you go.
Finally, I rolled paint on the ceiling within my painted edges, and touched up any areas that needed a little extra paint. Voila! Bugs shall not find a home on our ceiling, so says the south.
Happy porch-sitting!
Incidentally, the above bench was a fun little freebie we found on the curb, which I sanded down, painted, and distressed:
