Spruce Up Your Porch On A Budget With A Customized DIY That Will Stun Your Guests
Are you looking for an inexpensive, yet dramatic, way to liven up your outdoor space and turn your porch or patio into an oasis? Well, there are a number of great DIY ways to do so via furniture, plantings, and other fun elements. Even a dismal wooden porch or concrete terrace can be made into a stylish focal point with the addition of paint and pattern, including a classic yet trendy design that adds interest to an often overlooked spot. Using two colors of paint, a straight edge, and a square tile as a stencil, you can easily create the checkerboard porch floor of your dreams.
TikTok DIYer @lightandlion uses Sherwin Williams Porch & Floor Enamel paint for her design, which is specifically created to be durable and weatherproof. It is also able to be tinted with Sherwin Williams' wide array of colors, which means you can completely customize your color scheme. To create checkerboard tiled floor look outdoors, go for the black and white classic checkerboard, or opt, as the DIYer does here, for a soft blue-green with gray as an accent for a more muted palette.
Creating a checkerboard floor outdoors
To create a perfectly checked patio floor, start by preparing the surface with a power washer to make sure it's completely clean and smooth. Paint the entire surface with the lightest color all over, using additional coats if necessary. While you can use tape to mark off the lines for the squares that will go over the base coat, you can also create an easy stencil and guide with any 12-by-12-inch tile, a pencil, and a straight edge. Finish by painting the interior of the marked-off squares.
While this is a great way to use checkerboard patterns in your home, you can make it your own by making the pattern either smaller or larger. You can also tailor the final look with the color choices you make. For example, contrasting black and white paint create a statement-making, classic checkerboard porch. But, for a more toned-down take, opt for two similar colors to create a subtle monochromatic pattern.