Painting the Pool Deck Ledge

One of the issues that we know we're going to have once the pool paver guys get here and start installing is our ledge where the sliding glass door is. With the new height of the pavers and the tininess of the ledge, putting an actual paver there will be next to impossible.

Of course we're not leaving the ledge pink, however. We fully intend on covering any and all evidence that we, once upon a time, had a pink pool deck. Our hopes is that it will be a far, far, distant memory before too long!

I'm a DIY'er, and because my entire family knows that, last time we were visiting my Dad, he offered up a bunch of old paint that he found when he cleaned the garage.  I think it was either I took it, or it went to the garbage.  Just because something is old and rusty on the outside, doesn't mean that it's not perfectly good on the inside!!  Sheesh...don't judge a book by its cover, right?!

Anywho...Chris thought I was crazy for taking all of the paint and wanted to throw away about 95% of it as soon as we got home, but agreed to let it stay because I have my painting bookshelf that I can put it all in.

I initially used the paint from painting the house to paint a few steps, and then remembered that I had seen some gray porch paint in the mix my Dad gave to me, so I went and got that also, and did a side by side comparison of the two colors.

We put the paver's up to each color and decided the gray fit the coloration better, and would probably hold up better outside in the long run, so I got busy painting the rest of the ledge gray.

Yes, it's normal for me to have multiple paint colors on my body during any house painting project.  I'm actually super clean, for me, in this picture!

Instead of being excited when I got done with a couple of coats of the gray, my paint job just felt ... a little flat.

So, I put my noggin to use, and remembered that we had a little bit of brown porch paint left from painting the floor in the daybed room, and had an AHA moment.  I could dry paint some of the brown paint lightly over the gray paint to bring out a little more depth and dimension.  I didn't know if this would really work, so I don't have any pictures of the during, sorry!

I took my paint brush, dipped it in the brown floor paint, and then removed as much of the paint as possible off the brush, using an old shirt and some paper towels to ensure there really wasn't excess paint left.  I then wiped my now barely wet paint brush quickly back and forth across the steps, and wound up with this:

Minus Kodi's hair that I forgot to wipe off before taking the picture, I was so much happier with it!

The paver's next to the gray color of the steps re-affirmed my decision with the dry-brushing.

 Please ignore the dirt and dog hair.  It is an outside pool deck area, after all!

Once they lay the base layer down to even out the deck, these paver's will be pretty close to flush with the ledge.

Only two more weekends of prepping and painting left before they start!  And they're supposed to be done in one week.  I'm so excited...it so makes all of the trips up and down the ladder, back aches, and shoulder aches worth it!

Happy Friday everyone.  Hope you guys have a great weekend!

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