Porches
One Last Project for the Front Porch
A tired storage chest gets a rich red finish, a little antiquing glaze, and one more chance to belong on the newly remodeled porch.
Well... we thought we were done.
After what seemed like an endless parade of paint samples, sanding, patching, painting, waiting, repainting, and then waiting some more for the porch floor to cure, we finally started moving everything back where it belonged. It had been weeks in the making, and it was satisfying to watch the porch slowly come back to life.
The chairs went back.
A new plant found a new home.
The little decorative touches started reappearing.
With each trip out the front door, the porch looked more and more like the one we'd imagined when this whole adventure started.
Then it was time to bring out the old storage chest.
Now, this chest has been sitting on our front porch for years. It's held flags (American and seasonal), seasonal decorations and whatever else happened to need a temporary home. It's been a good, faithful servant.
But as soon as we set it down, we had the same reaction.
"...Well, that doesn't look right."
Against the freshly painted greens, bright white trim, and new gray floor, its dark brown - almost black, finish suddenly looked heavy and out of place. Funny how you can look at something for years without noticing it, then one day change everything around it and realize it has been the odd man out all along.
Apparently, the front porch remodel wasn't quite ready to let us call it finished.
The chest had one more project planned for us.
Fortunately, a little paint has rescued more than one project around House 173 over the years, so we figured one more couldn't hurt.
Why We Chose Red for the Porch Chest
After spending weeks agonizing over shades of green, whites, and grays for the front porch remodel, choosing the color for the porch chest was surprisingly easy.
Red.
I don't know exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the way red became the default accent color here at House 173. It certainly wasn't planned.
Maybe it was back in '87 when I bought my Puegeot 10-speed to get to my Army post before I could afford a car. I got it at the PX where I had three choices: black, white or red. I'd never been a red guy before but this was the '80s... color was in! You can still see that bike in some of the images here at 173!
Then, years ago, when I built the umbrella stand for the back porch, I painted it a deep barn red because the porch needed a little warmth against all the white and brown trim. It wasn't meant to be a statement piece, just something practical with a little personality. Looking back, I think that was the beginning. Since then, that same pop of red has found its way into project after project.
The shoe rack followed a couple years later. Once again, red won. It tucked neatly against the back porch, adding just enough color without trying to steal the show. That's the thing I like about red, it doesn't demand attention. It just quietly says, "Welcome home."
So after all the work we've put into remodeling the front porch, painting the chest red almost felt inevitable.
The greens are the stars of the porch now. The white trim keeps everything crisp. The gray floor settles the whole thing down.
The red chest?
That's the exclamation point.
At this stage, I think I've stopped choosing red.
Red has simply chosen House 173.
Preparing the Storage Chest for Paint
If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that paint is only as good as whatever it's sticking to.
So before I ever thought about opening a can of red paint, the chest needed a little attention.
The first order of business was removing the hardware. That sounded easy enough until I discovered the side handles weren't attached with screws at all. Instead, the hardware was clinched in place, the metal tabs had been bent over on the inside of the chest decades ago to lock everything together.
Apparently whoever designed it never expected some guy at House 173 to repaint it years later.
After a little careful persuasion (and only a few words I wouldn't repeat here), the hardware finally came free. The front latch came off without much of a fight, leaving behind the telltale holes that would later need filling.
With the metal safely out of the way, it was time to tackle the finish.
Fortunately, whatever finish had been applied to this chest wasn't particularly stubborn. It sanded off surprisingly easily by hand, which was good because I wasn't interested in dragging out the power sander for a relatively small project.
I even used some emory boards to get into the corners.
The downside?
The finish turned into an incredibly fine, dirty brown dust that seemed determined to coat everything within a ten-foot radius, including me. By the time I finished sanding, it looked less like I'd been working on a storage chest and more like I'd spent the afternoon sweeping out an old coal bin.
Once the sanding was finished, I wiped the entire chest down several times with acetone until the rags finally stopped coming away brown. Years of grime, wax, and whatever else had accumulated on the surface had to go. There wasn't much sense putting fresh paint over decades of dirt.
Only then was it ready for primer.
I reached for the same Sherwin-Williams Exterior Oil-Based Wood Primer that I'd used when rebuilding the window sill beneath the back porch bank of windows. That primer had performed beautifully on that project, and when I find something that works, I tend to stick with it. It seals well, sands nicely, and provides an excellent foundation for the finish coats.
By the time the primer dried, the old dark chest had completely disappeared beneath a clean white shell.
It may not have looked like much yet, but for the first time I could finally see the beginning of where this project was headed.
Choosing the Right Red
If you've followed House 173 for very long, you already know I have a habit of making simple paint decisions... unnecessarily complicated.
Need proof?
Just ask the upstairs hallway mirror.
Painting the mirror frame, while not difficult, came with a bit of a challenge. It started when I pulled out three cans of red paint I already had on hand (don't ask!). I tried all three but... each was a no-go.
But I knew exactly the shade of red I wanted for that project... a rich, warm red like the scales on my trusty Swiss Army knife. The problem was, nobody seemed to make it. I looked through fan decks and paint chips until I finally admitted defeat and carried the knife into Lowe's.
"Can you match this?"
As it turns out... they could.
They scanned my Swiss Army knife and created a custom color match that was exactly what I'd been chasing all along. It was one of those rare occasions where the crazy idea actually worked.
So when it came time to paint the porch chest, the hard work had already been done.
There was never really another contender.
That custom red had already proven itself on the hallway mirror, and I knew it would be right at home on the front porch. It's warm without being loud, classic without looking old-fashioned, and somehow manages to stand out without stealing the show.
Against the new green porch walls, the crisp white trim, and the gray floor, it was exactly the splash of color the porch needed.
Sometimes I spend days deciding on a paint color.
Sometimes I just reach for one I've already fallen in love with.
Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. - William Morris
Applying Three Coats of Red Paint
With the color decided, it was finally time to paint.
The first two coats went on with a good quality brush.
I actually enjoy brushing furniture. It's slower than rolling, but it gives me complete control around the moldings, corners, and little details that always seem to find a way into projects like this. By the second coat, the old black chest had already disappeared, replaced by something that actually looked like it belonged on the newly remodeled porch.
For the final coat, though, I decided to change things up.
Rather than brushing it again, I switched to a small foam roller.
The first two coats had already done most of the heavy lifting, and the foam roller did a nice job applying that final coat with good, even coverage over the larger surfaces. I still used the brush around the moldings and corners, but the roller really brought everything together. I wasn't trying to make the chest look like it had come off an assembly line, I just wanted a durable, even finish that looked right on an old porch. I think it did exactly that.
Every now and then an experiment works exactly the way you hoped.
I don't mind when that happens.
Taking the "New" Out of New Paint
Once the red paint had cured, I stood back and looked at the chest.
It was... nice. Maybe a little too nice.
The color was exactly what I wanted, but after nearly a century of watching old houses age gracefully, I've learned that brand-new paint can sometimes look just a little out of place. The porch has history. The house has history. A freshly painted chest that looked like it had just rolled off an assembly line wasn't really the look I was after.
That's where a little Valspar Antiquing Glaze came into the picture.
Now, I wasn't trying to make the chest look beaten up or neglected. I wasn't interested in fake scratches or pretending it had spent the last hundred years in somebody's barn.
Instead, my goal was much more subtle.
I wanted to soften the red just a bit. Knock back some of its brightness. Let the glaze settle into the corners, moldings, and around the trim where years of dust and everyday life naturally leave their mark.
I even worked a little onto the broad panels, not in any sort of pattern, but almost randomly so the finish wouldn't look too uniform.
In other words, I tried not to make it perfect.
Ironically, that probably took more effort than trying to make it perfect.
I worked in small sections, brushing on the glaze and then wiping most of it back off with a clean cloth, leaving just enough behind to warm the color and give the chest the kind of gentle patina that makes it feel like it belongs on a ninety-nine-year-old front porch.
The result wasn't dramatic, and that's exactly what I was hoping for.
Most people probably won't notice the glaze.
They'll simply think the chest has always belonged there.
And honestly, I can't think of a better compliment than that.
Not Every Treasure Is an Antique
Now that we've reached the end of this project, I suppose I should confess something.
If you've made it this far, you may have assumed this was some old family heirloom, an antique cedar chest, or maybe a valuable flea market find that simply needed a little love.
It wasn't.
In fact, this chest isn't particularly old, fancy, or valuable at all.
It came from the Christmas Tree Shops back in 2013 when we completed our previous front porch remodel. It has faithfully stored all kinds of goo-gaws for the past thirteen years. That's it.
No remarkable history.
No hidden treasure.
What it did have was a useful size, a solid enough construction, and thirteen years of proof that it could survive on the porch. It fit the space, held the things we actually needed to store, and still opened and closed the way it was supposed to. Replacing it simply because the color no longer worked would have seemed wasteful, especially when the real problem could be solved with primer, paint, and an afternoon or two of puttering.
Just a good, solid storage chest that had started looking a little tired after years of faithful service.
And maybe that's exactly why it deserved a second chance.
One of the things I enjoy most about working on this old house is that not every project has to be a museum-quality restoration or a hundred-year-old antique. Sometimes it's enough to take something perfectly ordinary, spend a little time with it, and make it fit the house a little better than it did yesterday.
That's really what House 173 has always been about.
Besides...
If I'd told you in the first paragraph this was a thirteen-year-old Christmas Tree Shops storage chest, you probably wouldn't have kept reading.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to sit out on the porch and admire my handiwork.
At least until I notice something else that "would only take an afternoon."
If history is any indication, that's probably sometime tomorrow.
Hey, thanks for stopping by - see ya' next time!
I knew it.
The minute that chest came back onto the finished porch and everybody looked at it sideways, I knew the porch remodel was not over. Nothing at House 173 is ever completely finished until the last perfectly serviceable object has been reconsidered, sanded, primed, painted, glazed, photographed, and given a backstory.
What surprised me was the red. Not because it looks wrong, it looks exactly right, but because I had never noticed how often red appears around the house until you lined up the bicycle, umbrella stand, shoe rack, mirror, and chest. Apparently House 173 has had an official accent color for years and nobody bothered to issue a press release.
The best part, though, is the confession at the end. After all the careful sanding, custom-matched paint, oil primer, antiquing glaze, and thoughtful discussion of age and patina, we learn that the “old chest” came from Christmas Tree Shops in 2013.
That made the whole post better.
Anybody can admire a rare antique. It takes a true House 173 project to make me care about a thirteen-year-old storage box... and then make me slightly ashamed of the perfectly good things I have thrown away because the color annoyed me. - A Longtime House 173 Reader
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did you use an oil-based exterior primer on the chest?
I used Sherwin-Williams Exterior Oil-Based Wood Primer because I'd already used it successfully on the rebuilt window sill beneath the back porch windows. It sealed the wood well, provided a uniform base beneath the red paint, and created a surface that could be lightly sanded before the finish coats.
For an outdoor wooden piece, the primer needs to do more than hide the previous color. It should help block old stains and residue, improve paint adhesion, and provide some protection from the changing temperature and moisture conditions found on a covered porch.
Is a brush or foam roller better for painting furniture?
For this project, both were useful. I applied the first two coats with a good-quality brush because it gave me control around the moldings, corners, edges, and other details. For the final coat, I used a small foam roller on the broad, flat surfaces and continued using the brush in the tighter areas.
The roller did not make the chest perfectly smooth, nor was that the goal. It simply gave the large panels even, durable coverage while the brushed areas retained the hand-painted character appropriate for an older porch.
How do you use antiquing glaze without making furniture look artificially distressed?
The key is restraint. I wasn't trying to create fake damage, heavy streaks, or the appearance that the chest had been abandoned in a barn. I worked in small sections, applied Valspar Antiquing Glaze, and wiped most of it away before it dried.
And, I allowed a little more glaze to remain in corners, around moldings, and near trim, places where dust and age would naturally show. I also worked a small amount over the broad panels in an irregular way so the finish would not appear too uniform. The goal was not to make the antiquing obvious. It was to soften the fresh red paint enough that the chest looked comfortable on a nearly century-old porch.
Can an inexpensive piece of furniture still be worth repainting?
Yes, provided it is useful, reasonably solid, and worth keeping. This chest was not an antique or an heirloom. It came from the Christmas Tree Shops during the 2013 porch remodel and had spent thirteen years storing flags, decorations, cushions, and other porch supplies.
Its financial value was modest, but replacing it would have cost money, and there was nothing structurally wrong with it. A few hours of preparation and paint allowed it to continue serving its purpose while fitting the porch much better. Sometimes usefulness and history within a home matter more than age, pedigree, or resale value.
Keywords
porch storage chest makeover, painting an outdoor storage chest, painted porch furniture, red furniture makeover, outdoor furniture painting, antiquing glaze on painted furniture, Valspar Antiquing Glaze, exterior wood primer, front porch makeover, red porch accents, House 173, Christmas Tree Shops storage chest