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mimzy & company

Sewing for your home and other DIY stuff.

/ diy projects, my house reno., paint projects

I painted faux encaustic/cement tile on my front porch

faux encaustic tileMy front porch is very neglected.  We always use the garage door to come and go, so I pretty much ignore the front entrance to our house unless I know someone’s coming over. Then I shew our two cats and give it a sweep, but that’s about it.

It had orange 6″ x 6″ tile that looked like standard restaurant kitchen tile.  Not pretty.  I’ve debated about what to do with the ugly tile since we bought the house 8 years ago. I even started collecting some nice tumbled travertine because  my neighbor had leftovers from a project.  But after glimpsing all the lovely cement tile all over the web and in stores I decided to DIY a faux version. It cost practically nothing and the transformation was quick.

I started by priming the whole thing with a shellac based primer(the only primer that works for Ikea melamine furniture, btw).  I know because I’ve painted tons of IKEA furniture with this, and with other primers and shellac is the only primer that sticks. shellac primer

I’ve also used this shellac primer to paint the tile surrounding the bath tub in my kids’ bathroom and it has stood the test of three kids for eight years now. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long and I still haven’t changed it. That was supposed to be a temporary fix. Oh well….

faux encaustic tileI painted each tile individually because I wanted the grout to remain grey and semi-aged. More authentic looking.  It was a little tedious. I tried a few different tools and the 4″ sponge roller was by far the fastest and easiest method.  With the roller fairly dry I was able to roll each tile without having to cut-in around the edge of each one.  I rolled fairly lightly.

faux encaustic tileThen I did the same process with Behr Ultra(paint and primer in one).  It was left over from my master bedroom walls. The color is called Graphite Pencil.  faux encaustic tileI taped the stencil down on each square and used a flat stencil brush to dry brush the paint on.  Next time I would definitely cut my stencil to cover four or more tiles at once so I could stencil multiple tiles without moving the stencil.  Like my mom always said…you live and learn, and sometimes you just live.

img_2480fawx encaustic tileI love the way it turned out!  I just hope the shellac primer does its job and sticks. We’ll see how long it lasts.  Now I need to paint my house.  I intended to paint the brick after I replace the front windows and so far I’ve only replaced my two workroom windows. So it’s about time I just go ahead and paint.

faux cement tile

Next up,

  1. New lights
  2. New greeting…either painted on like the previous “welcome” , or possibly purchase a sticker from etsy.
  3. landscape tweeking leading to the front door(at least some new mulch).

What do you think? I think it actually looks authentic.

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Comments

  1. Hi! Just wondering when you painted your front porch and how the paint is holding up! Let me know!

    • It held up really well for about a year….no peeling or anything. but then all of sudden it started to peel all over the place in spots, mostly where it got wet from rain. I never put a sealer on it though. If I had put a matte polyurethane I think it may have helped. I knew it was a temporary fix when I did it. even with the peeling spots, its still better than the orange tile. this would be a perfect application for inside.

      thanks for asking.

  6. Great Job! I love it!

    After reading about the top coat, I was wondering if it would be slippery? It rains a lot here and I wanted to make sure.

    • I never actually made it to the topcoat. I’m not sure if it would be slippery, maybe if you were to use a glossy topcoat it could be a little slippery. I painted and poly’d my sewing room with a satin finish poly and its not slippery, although it doesn’t experience rain…thank God. :). If you’re thinking of doing a similar finish outside I would test the topcoat or use a flat/matte polyurethane. Miniwax makes a really nice waterbase polyacrylic I’ve used.

  7. ummmmm…any plans to redo that one tile that is out of pattern? Or is it a game to see if anyone notices?

    • LOL! I was thinking the same thing! Very impressive and well executed minus the one off tile

      • Thank you! I never repainted that wrong tile and so far no-one has noticed it in person…or said anything. Thank you for commenting.

  10. This looks amazing!!! Awesome job! If I were you I would use a top coat. We stenciled our covered front porch 2 years ago and it already needs lots of touch up. We didn’t top coat 🙁

    • Thank you! I plan to put some sort of topcoat, but i want it to remain flat(no sheen) , so I haven’t decided what to use. Any suggestions?

        • It’s so funny…when I responded to you was gonna say something about modern masters dead flat but never thought you would know what I was talking about because it’s not widely used. But, after combing your blog this morning I see you know aaaaalllll about it! Y’all do beautiful work! We have so many commonalities! We’ll have meet at Haven next year…I went for the first time this year.

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