Night Owl's Garden

While waiting on the rain to pass, I kept adding to my list of things to do with the screened-in porch makeover. I scraped and sanded the furniture for painting last Tuesday. By Friday of that week after plenty of rain, I decided that I really should paint the interior of the screened-in porch. The paint along the horizontal boards flaked off with the slightest touch, and using a water hose on it made it even worse. Some areas showed bare wood. I purchased the white paint on that Friday and knew I could not begin the project until Sunday. By Sunday, the project evolved again.

On that Sunday morning, I sat on the couch eating my breakfast and contemplating the work ahead of me that day. I decided to read online about painting screened-in porches. That’s when I learned about haint blue.

Growing up in Kentucky and traveling in the south throughout my life, I had noticed light blue or aqua ceilings on porches. I didn’t know what it was called and why it was done. In fact, the screened-in porch of the house where I lived until I was eleven had a light aqua ceiling, and I never knew why.

In my research, I learned that haint blue goes back to the Gullah culture of South Carolina and Georgia. The Gullahs believed that a haint (ghost) could not cross water, so they painted doors, window sills, porches, etc with blue paint. Their thinking was that the blue paint would mimic water and deter ghosts from entering the home. That’s why it was called haint blue.

The tradition of painting porch ceilings blue spread across the south and up into the northeast, and along with the expansion other theories popped up. Some people believed that wasps and spiders would not settle on blue paint because it looks like the sky. The insect-deterring nature of the blue paint might have had more to do with early paint formulations than the actual paint color, but the theory stuck.

As a lover of ghost stories, I preferred the Gullah tales behind haint blue, and on that Sunday morning, I decided I had to have a haint blue ceiling on my screened-in porch. I got dressed and drove over to our local hardware store, Eads Hardware, where I have purchased all the paint for my home. I selected several swatches of blues from their PPG Porter Paints collection. Then I took them home and compared them to our siding (also a blue). Mom came over and deliberated with me on which light blue worked best. We picked “Water Lily,” and I ran back out to Eads to get the paint.

When I returned home, I cut in the ceiling with the blue paint, and Graham rolled on two coats of the paint (waiting an hour between coats). We decided to spray paint the lawn furniture between ceiling coats and after the second coat. I pushed off my goal of painting the woodwork until the next day.

I am in love with my haint blue ceiling, and it looks great with the edison lights!

If you want to read more about haint blue, I liked these articles:

• The Whys Behind the Blue Porch Ceiling – Sherwin Williams
• These are the Prettiest Shades of Haint Blue for Your Porch – Southern Living
• Haint Blue, the Ghost-Tricking Color of Southern Homes and Gullah Folktales – The Awl

Note: I was not paid by Eads Hardware or PPG Porter Paints to write this post. I just happen to love my local hardware store and Porter Paints.

When we bought our house, we purchased a lot of the furniture in it, including the metal patio furniture on the screened-in porch. At the time the furniture sported black paint with peeling in areas revealing the white paint underneath and sometimes the green paint underneath that. Without question, Graham and I prepped the surfaces of each piece and repainted the furniture black. Fast forward seven years later, and we were back to peeling paint, but this time I made a different decision.

Initially, I thought we’d repaint it black. I even bought some cans of black paint, but then I wondered if something different would look better. I popped online where I quickly discovered the trend of painting metal furniture all sorts of fun colors. Rather than the usual black, brown, green, and white, people opted for bright, fresh colors. Suddenly my mind swirled with blues, aquas, yellows, purples, pinks, reds, etc. I thought about my screened-in porch and the two peacock windchimes (side note: we call our house Peacock Hill, and we have A LOT of peacock-themed items). I decided blue and aqua tones would fit the bill.

Rust-Oleum now features a HUGE palette of colors. I looked at four dark blues and a myriad of aqua and green tones. I chose “Ink Blue,” which has an indigo/purple thing going for it, and “Lagoon,” a good mid-tone aqua.

Note: If you ever want it to rain in Central Kentucky, please contact me and ask me to make plans to paint lawn furniture. Last Tuesday I looked at the weather forecast on The Weather Channel app. It said that Tuesday and Wednesday had about 10% chance of rain. That was good enough for me! Graham helped me drag the furniture off the screened-in porch, and I started scraping and sanding. My plan was to scrape, sand, and hose down the furniture on Tuesday and paint it all on Wednesday. Mother Nature, it seems, had other plans. By Tuesday night, Wednesday’s forecast flipped to heavy rain that continued until the weekend.

While waiting on the rain to pass, I concocted a bunch of other screened-in porch makeover plans. I figured it would be best to do everything at once. I’ll cover those projects in another post.

This past Monday, I finally got to paint the furniture. I spray-painted all the main furniture the “Ink Blue,” and I covered all the accent pieces in “Lagoon.” I even spray-painted the “Lagoon” on the light steel blue faux leather seat cushions. Though I know there are paints made specifically for leather and vinyl, I remembered spray-painting ballet and tap shoes in dance school, so I took the chance, and they turned out fine. All the results were beautiful, but I still had concerns about how it would look in action.

My worries were unfounded! When we placed the furniture back on the screened-in porch, everything looked so fresh. I added the red cushions that we’ve used the last seven years. The whole look just clicked into place.

Paint can make all the difference in the world. While more traditional metal furniture colors are the norm, think outside the box and be bold. You might be surprised with the results!

Note: I was not paid by Rust-Oleum to write this post. It’s just my go-to spray paint.