DIY Porch Columns Stain Color
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DIY porch columns are a GREAT weekend project to give some major curb appeal to your home.
After we framed out our old skinny front porch columns with pine (more on this below), landing on the right stain color for our porch columns was a bit daunting for me.
I wanted the color to really stand out against all the white and black that is our home, but didn’t want the color to lean too far rustic. I wanted something classic and tried to find a nice medium between the bright orange columns that are often seen and a darker, weathered look.
What did our house look like before our DIY front porch columns?
Below is a look at our house before we built the wooden columns. It’s pretty underwhelming. Before we built the columns, we opted to rip out the railing to make the porch feel a bit bigger.
So skinny. They just got lost, poor guys!
I knew that framing out the columns would make a difference, but I don’t think I realized how much!
We’ve been slowly upping our curb appeal over the past two years. I actually just wrote up a post on what we’ve done so far. One of our first projects was framing out our old porch columns. It’s been an absolute game changer for the front of our home!
See what else we’ve been doing to up our curb appeal.
We finished framing them out late into the evening, and I’m sure all my neighbors thought I’d really finally gone off my rocker this time. Squealing in delight and using my husband’s work light to take photos ASAP.
**I get a lot of messages about these and I am not always able to respond here quickly. If you have a question for me, feel free to message me at my business instagram account @courtneysmithphoto. I no long have a home account and this is my photo business account, but it’s still me 🙂
How we stained our columns
After testing several stains and stain combinations on a scrap piece of pine wood (by the way, always always always test on scrap wood), I landed on a combination of Ipswich Pine and Early American to create the rich, modern color for the columns that I was going for.
Early American provides the deep base that I was after, and Ipswich Pine kicks the rich color up a notch.
However, it’s important to use the right amount of each! So keep reading for that!
Also, everyone please say hello to our “watch dog,” Charlie. This window is where he sits to bark at every falling leaf and passerby.
HOW TO CREATE THE STAIN MIXTURE
My recommendation is to mix this and try it on a piece of scrap wood before applying to your columns.
Every board takes stain a little differently. Start with a smaller amount of Early American so that you can add more if you think it’s too light! Increase it until you have your desired color.
In a separate container, I created a mixture of about 3/4 Ipswich Pine and the 1/4 Early American. This is what worked for me! But I would definitely test it out on your wood first.
It’s also SUPER important to seal your columns so that they hold up to the elements. More on that below.
HOW TO SEAL YOUR DIY COLUMNS:
After the stain dried, we went back over the columns with a heavy duty exterior poly in satin.
This really helped to give the columns a polished, finalized feel. We applied 3 coats of this to ensure the wood was protected!
I did this in pretty quick succession. I would simply wait for the poly to be dry to the touch, and then apply the next coat. And it dries pretty quickly!
How we built our DIY Porch Columns
Sadly, this is not a tutorial on how to BUILD these columns. To tell you the truth, we completed this home project before I was fully documenting our renovations.
That being said, we built our DIY porch columns out of common pine boards to save money on this project and loosely followed this plan from Beneath My Heart to fit the dimensions we needed.
**For anyone worried about using pine, keep reading!
For anyone worried about using pine boards, it’s been 2 years since completing our DIY porch columns, and they still look almost brand new. I have been so happy with this stain color. In my opinion, it’s timeless and really pops on the front of our house!
Need more curb appeal ideas?
See more of what we’ve done to the exterior of our home here!
I hope this has been helpful for your own DIY porch columns!
Until next time,
