Always with the stripping

After a brutal few weeks at work and a well-deserved week of vacation with Rachel’s family at the beach in Florida, we’re back at it on the house, continuing the project that I started more than a month ago: stripping the front concrete porch steps and pedestal caps.

Here’s the best view I’ve got of before, and then after the first go with stripper, scraping and washing.

Lots of blue and gray layers of paint on there. This process has been more tedious and involved than I thought it might be (I should know better at this point) but not all that complicated. What I thought might just involve a layer, maybe two, of stripper has turned into the perpetual case of “just one more coat and wash.”

I brush on the concrete stripper, leave it on for about 5-7 hours, and then scrape off everything I can with the scraper and other tools. Then I go to the pressure washer, which is beyond tedious since it only really brings the paint off when you have it dialed into the laser-like setting. So to do one stair tread properly takes at least 8-10 minutes. Multiply that by 5 treads, 6 backs, and then the ginormous bottom landing, and that’s a lot of hours of pressure washing.

The urgency got ramped up last week when the guy I borrowed the washer from arranged to loan it to someone else. So I gotta get finished and share the wealth. Thankfully, the guy getting it next was nice enough to give me an extra week with it. Which has translated into working on this pretty much every night and all weekend (except for Sunday afternoon when I went to the Gold Cup semifinal: USA vs Jamaica here in DC!)

I’m ready to be done with the pressure washing. As is my back. I did learn why it’s better to wear jeans, though.

I was trying to swat a mosquito and the stream just glided over my ankle for a brief moment while I was waving about. It stung pretty bad and I thought I might have a little red line the next day, but it actually broke the skin and scabbed over the next day. Which left me wondering how any of this paint could still be hanging on!?

But things are looking good. The pedestal caps are essentially done and ready for etcher and wire brushing, and the column caps will probably get finished tomorrow or Thursday. The stairs are really just down to a few spots that need to be heavily treated — the rest of the tread area is in good shape.

The next big decision will be what to do with the steps after they’re stripped bare. Rachel has wanted to leave them plain in some fashion, I’ve been wanting to paint them but I’m thinking about staining the concrete instead. We’re definitely going to paint the pedestal and column caps, though.

But by this weekend everything should be ready. I think.

Surely, just one more coat and wash.

Thankfully, the front edge of the garden on the sidewalk came clean with just one coat of stripper and the pressure washer. Here it is before and then halfway through (yesterday.)

Tom Carpenter says:

22 June, 2011 at 10:08 am

Dude, this is impressive. I took on the same project when we moved into our row house, but just gave up after about a week because there were so many layers of paint. I finally just painted over it again but now it is continually peeling so you will surely be rewarded for your hard work. I like the idea of staining the concrete. I have also though of putting brick over top of the concrete

whiteknuckled says:

22 June, 2011 at 11:10 am

Thanks Tom. It's been a load of work thus far, though the nice thing is that it's one project that doesn't cost much money to do, unlike others we need to do. I suppose if I had 2 kids running around the house at the time I was doing it, I'd be less likely to see it all the way through. 🙂 Lots of mornings putting stripper on before work and then coming straight home and working til dark.

mOm says:

24 June, 2011 at 2:08 pm

I SAW how much work this took just on the stairs – even without the wicked pressure washing of the skin. You've done a great job! I've seen some really great looking concrete stain. In fact, that's what the floor is at Perimeter on the youth side. Then it's got a major protective coating of some kind over it. And sparkles in it. 🙂

24 June, 2011 at 2:09 pm

And the hairy leg/foot was a nice touch.

Porch renovation continues: Finishing the trim | Our Old Rowhouse says:

15 July, 2011 at 2:44 pm

[…] already documented the concrete stripping in exhaustive detail, which is entirely complete other than a few last stubborn spots, concrete repair and then a final […]

The transformation of our front yard through the last year and a half | Our Old Rowhouse says:

24 April, 2012 at 5:28 pm

[…] to the lattice and the front joist under the porch from the above picture. This was after the layers of paint were stripped off of the steps and concrete pedestal, and the joists and lattice […]

Small projects make a big difference: repainting the fireplace | Our Old Rowhouse says:

31 July, 2012 at 3:45 pm

[…] to use for the front porch steps — which I never used because we decided to leave them unpainted after stripping them bare. It works great for porous materials like brick because it contains epoxy to help penetrate and […]

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