Front porch railings

Our front porch rails had been looking bad since we moved in. It was finally time to get them fixed. I already had the exterior white paint that I bought long ago, but I never used it. This was a long process. I've been working on it for about 3 weeks off and on. It's one of those things that can't be done when there is so much rain! But, I finally finished and it looks so much better. It's amazing the difference when you walk up the porch.

Here's what we started with:

See the cracking, peeling, and general dirtiness? Also, see that adorable photo bomber?

Closer up:

First I used a scrapper to remove as much chipping paint as I could.

Then, I sanded everything I could get to with the electric sander. Mostly the tops of all the rails. I didn't worry about sanding in between all the rails. The paint wasn't chipping in between and I wasn't switching colors or anything.

 Then, I made some bleach water and cleaned everything- every nook and cranny. That took a while.  It was already looking better. I didn't get a picture of that.

Here's a mid-progress picture. The right was done and the left wasn't. See the difference?

Here is the before and after together. I know it's probably hard to tell the difference in pictures, but it looks tons different in person.

I also painted the trim around the door because it was looking really rough. This is an older before picture I had:

And after (the horseshoe's been gone for a while)

It's so much nicer walking up our stairs now!