Back Porch Update and Easy Exterior Window Cleaning

This post is Sponsored by The Home Depot. As always all opinions are 100% my own.

Last summer, we were in the thick of demolition here at #the1878bycarli. There was so much to be done on the interior of our home, that we hadn’t even considered working on the exterior. When Home Depot reached out asking me to try out Windex® Outdoor, I jumped at the chance, as I knew it would motivate me to go outside and get to work on our sad little back porch. Our house, prior to us buying it, had been abandoned for over 6 years, so there was years of dirt and mildew build up on our back porch area.

I know it’s awful, I honestly felt bad for my neighbors as they were the ones who had to face it everyday. So I had to come up with a plan:

Hose down siding, doors, and stairs
Clean Windows with Windex® Outdoor Sprayer
Paint porch door and steps
Update Light Fixture
Weed and freshen up landscaping

Attempting to complete my list in an afternoon, (which in hindsight was completely overly ambitious, ha!) I made a mad dash to Home Depot to grab some supplies. I grabbed some shrubs, a new light fixture, some paint for the porch, a new hose and 2 bottles of Windex® Outdoor.

I had never tried Windex® Outdoor before, but was anxious to give it a try on our back door and the windows in the front of our house that are pretty difficult to reach due to our huge shrubs.

However, it was quite easy– I was even able to reach up to the second floor, and our home is quite elevated.

The instructions for use are really simple:

Make sure dial is turned to OFF, attach hose and turn on water
Remove yellow plug
Turn dial to rinse and rinse the windows
Turn to CLEAN and spray windows from bottom to top
Allow suds to sit for 15 seconds and then rinse for a streak free shine

I was really impressed with the results of the Windex® Outdoor, as it truly takes the grunt work out of cleaning glass, windows, brick and outdoor furniture, without leaving any gross film or residue! It’s especially useful for hard to reach windows, or if you have a home with lots of windows, this is the perfect solution for you!

Once everything was clean, I gave the back door a paint job with Behr Le Luxe. It’s a beautiful deep blue color that lends a coastal feel, which I love. I then used Behr Deckover on the porch in Slate, I also began painting the foundation in slate as well.

Our garden was fairly overgrown with different types of lilies. So on the left side of the garden, I thinned them out a little and relocated them to another area of the
yard and planted some hostas, a small spirea shrub and an arborvitae to eventually grow large enough to hide the gas meter.

back porch before update

My next step was installing my new outdoor wall sconce. I decided to use a motion activated light as we often use this door when coming in at night.

back porch before and after

Lastly, I lined the middle of the porch steps with two inexpensive outdoor scatter rugs to form a runner, and simply nailed them down with brad nails. I am in love with the way it all turned out.