When good jobs go bad

You know how sometimes something that should be a relatively simple job ends up being way, WAY more than you bargained for? That's how my recent "brilliant" idea to fix up my porch ended up going.

First, the cement was all stained and icky looking. Second, it gets slicker than whale snot (and, I'm pretty sure that's really, really slick) when it's wet. So I decided to stain and texture it. Simple, right? Yeah, sure. It should have been, but ....

I washed the porch all squeaky clean in preparation for staining. Then gave it a day to dry (per the instructions of Mr. Sherwin Williams as concrete absorbs water.)

By now, there is rain in the forecast. Waited a day.

Now the wind was blowing. REALLY blowing. Not only blowing, but blowing cottonwood seed so thickly that it looked like it was snowing. Well, I didn't want a porch that looked like one of those preschool-made lambs with cotton balls stuck all over a piece of constructions paper, so I waited.

Days went by.

Now the porch is all dirty again from the wind blowing in dust and cottonwood seed. Washed it down again. Waited another day.

Ya-HOO! A day that is not rainy, not windy and between the recommended temperatures of 60-90 degrees. (Anyone live in Kansas? Anyone know how rare a day like that is here??) I got two coats of stain on. It looked great!

Life briefly interfered so it took a couple of days before I could get to the sealer. Still, the porch was pretty clean and just a good blow job with a leaf blower prepped it for the sealer.

Start sealing. Do a strip of about 2' by 6'. Uh-oh. Is it supposed to turn orange?? Methinks not. Stop working.

Next day, go see Mr. Sherwin Williams. After some detective work on his part he finally deduced that *I* bought oil-based sealer to go over water-based stain which is, apparently, a no-no. Um. No. Actually, YOU SOLD me the wrong sealer. I was the one in here a couple of weeks ago asking what I needed to pretty my porch.

Armed with a free can of the correct sealer and instructions to go home and sand the part that turned orange (and a bit of a pissy attitude that I was going to have to sand), off I went.

Break out the sander and the coarsest sandpaper I have. Sand. And sand. And sand. Hmmm. Apparently sanding cement sealer has only slightly less effect than using an emery board would have on a diamond.

Sherwin Williams is now closed and so, I assume, that Mr. Sherwin Williams has gone home for the day. Hit Ace Hardware and plead my case. After being treated like I was slightly stupid for trusting Mr. Sherwin Williams (but, to be honest, he's never steered me wrong before) I am sent off armed this time with a can of extra-strength stripper.

A few notes about extra-strength stripper:
1) It burns the flesh
2) It burns the nose hairs when inhaled
3) It, mixed with the sealer you're trying to remove, turns into super glue and adheres permanently with anything it comes into contact with including skin. (See note #1)

After about two hours work on roughly 12 square feet, I got most of the orange off.

Washed the area down with bleach water, per the instructions of Mr. Ace Hardware cramming old towels along the edge of the porch to hopefully soak up the bleach and keep it from running in to the bed killing my recently planted flowers and thus adding serious insult to injury.

Let dry.

Re-stain the areas that I stripped.

Spend a few days doing other things.

Wash down the porch again since it's gathered all new dirt and bugs since the last washing.

Realize that the un-sealed stain has acquired stains. And, by stains, I mean ugly, dirt-type stains and not pretty paint-type stain.

Do some touch-up staining.

[At this point, you may notice that I have refrained from sharing any of the comments or special words that I have been saying throughout this ordeal. I'm trying to keep this, at the least, a PG blog. I'm sure you can imagine, though.]

Start rolling on the new sealer. Stop and say a few of those words I'm keeping myself from sharing. The first (wrong) batch of sealer was about the consistency of paint, but clear. In fact, it looked a lot like clear fingernail polish. The new (supposedly right) sealer is both the color and consistency of watered-down milk. And it turned foamy when rolled on. This can't be right!?!

In a fit of pique I cover the whole porch with this mess thinking that I'm doing it, I'm not stopping and if it is the wrong stuff than Mr. Sherwin Williams is going to have his ass (sorry, a girl can only resist for so long) out here tomorrow with a sandblaster and HE is going to be re-doing it!

Huff off.

Come back outside about an hour later. Wow! What do you know? It dried clear and actually looks pretty good! Do a second coat. It also dries clear. And it still looks pretty good.

Soooooo, (no making this long story short) it's now all done. And I finally got all my house plants moved to the porch, which is their summer home. And it still looks good. So, was all the hassle worth it?

I don't know if I'd go that far.