Holiday Grand Plan, Week 1

This weeks cleaning focus is the front porch. I have two porches, the side covered porch - an entrance to our kitchen (our most used entrance) and the front enclosed porch - entry to the foyer. I have started removing YEARS of paint, varnish and shellac - a long and exhausting process. The house was built in 1907, so there are YEARS of paint types and colours applied - all in poor condition.

The main focus will be getting the wood in shape to paint. This will take longer then one week - but we are hoping to complete the project before the start of the new school year (September 6 - how is that for optimism!).

Kitchen porch window, 3 days of paint removal

Our home is a two story red brick, the new exterior colours we picked are:
Black Magic (porch floors, kitchen and front entrance door, window 'stool', roof and flashing, front porch shakes)
Heavy Cream (front porch windows, railings and porch posts on kitchen porch)
Earthy Ochre (front porch door, house windows, lintel trim on both porches, inside walls of front porch)
Brownstone (porch skirting)

On my Front Porch Checklist I would also like to complete:
1. install 'something' to hold the delivered newspapers
2. create a polite 'no soliciting' sign (is that possible?)
3. plant the fall urn and hanging baskets
4. install new front porch light