Last weekend I finished a BIG project and that was painting my back patio! It was harder than I thought it would be in almost every way BUT it was well worth it for the stunning results I get to live with now!
I will start this off by saying that I was looking for a more “worn in” and well loved look. I am also not a perfectionist nor do I care about perfection, so if you lean that way, this project may take a bit more time.
This was what I started with. Our plan is to eventually put a deck out here but in the meantime, I wanted to try something fun.
So I moved everything out of the way.
And then realized that my pressure washer was dead. So I just sprayed it off and swept it really well.
I started with a base coat of light grey and used a darker grey for the stencil. I probably would have preferred the reverse but I was worried it would become too hot in the sun. I’m also glad I didn’t use white or any variety of white because even this light grey is VERY bright in the sun! So, keep that in mind.
I purchased the stencil from Stencil On on Etsy. I got the 19in, 10 – mil, white plastic option and I am glad I did! It held up wonderfully and the dried paint peeled off afterwards so I can use it again.
The base coat took about three hours, maybe more than that. The stenciling took over five hours and killed my back. There was a little bleeding in some spots but not much because I tried to keep the brush as “dry” as possible while stenciling. It wasn’t a hard task, just a time consuming one.
I am very pleased with how it turned out. I did not seal it because I didn’t feel that it was needed but you could definitely do so.
Our patio is 10 feet by 24ft. Doug had to go back to Lowes for me (because he is a saint) to buy a second gallon of paint because I was definitely not expecting to need more than one. If you want a very solid coverage, you would need a third gallon. Each gallon was about $30 each.
If you’ve been wanting to try to paint a patio…go for it!
No project with paint can’t be fixed with more paint!