Porch Upgrade . . . In Process

Okay so my front porch was far from welcoming.  Actually it was down right ugly.  It still needs some paint but I moved out the large pot (which left a large stain) and painted an old chair red.  Then I updated the wreath with some cheerful pink.  But the crowning achievement is the fence (place French Horns trumpeting here) and a cute welcome sign (created by my Daughter and her Cricut).  I love it!

I think I will have to paint the concrete porch at some point - I tried bleach and baking soda and it just made it worse.   And the mailbox needs to be more understated (bought spray paint for that job).  And of course I had to take the picture when the sun was not shining.  I will update that on another day.

So do you want to make your own :)
So to create your own awesome fence you need:
1 - 4" x 4" (measure to see how long you need - I wanted ours to start on the step below)
1 - finial top with a screw bottom
1 - wedged shaped top (it goes under the finial and on top of the 4" x 4")
1 - 2" x 4" (again you are going to have to measure and then double it)
And enough fence boards to cover your area
Wood Screws
Mollies and Bolts for the wall
White wash paint and brush
Electric Drill and Electric Screw Driver
Circular Saw or Chop Saw

First you need to cut the 4" x 4" to the right height.  Then chop the back off the wedge shaped top so that when it is on the top of the 4" x 4" it mounts flush with the wall.  Then drill and screw in the finial top. Creating your 4" x 4" post.

Then cut the 2" x 4"s to match the necessary length to go from the 4 x 4 post to the wall.  Mount the 2" x 4"s to the 4" x 4".  We just eyeballed exactly where we wanted the horizontals to go on our 'fence' and drilled pre holes and then screwed it in with wood screws. 

Then we mounted it onto the wall with Mollies and bolts.  It went into the mortar in our brick wall.  We made sure that the bolts would be accessible after the fence boards were attached so that I could take it down and paint the wall (and the fence) later.

Then we put on the fence boards.  We created our own pattern.  If you really want to do this on the cheap and have a table saw then you can do what we did.  Buy the 1" x 6" x 6' redwood fence boards at your local home improvement store for about $2.00 per board and cut the board long wise in half and then cut them in half the other way.  You will end up with 4 - 3' fence boards,  2 with flat ends on both ends and 2 with a flat end and a diagonal cut end for about 50 cents each.   Hence the pattern in our 'fence'. 

I leave it to you to figure out where to mount your fence boards.  The trick is keeping them even.  And trust me it was a trick :)  And keeping the bottom edge straight.  We did have to do a bit of chopping here to make everything work.

Once everything is put together then take the fence down and white wash it.  I did it with exterior paint mixed with a lot of water.  Came out awesome.  Then remount when it is dry.

What do you think?  

Enjoy!