I’ve been blogging over several posts about the progress of taking carpet off our front porch. On May 17th I started tearing out the carpet to get rid of dust, allergens, cat hair, dirt… you name it.

Since then I’ve run the gamut of up’s and down’s on trying to figure out how to complete this project because the carpet glue would not come off, regardless of what I tried.

I said in one of my blogs that I couldn’t give up, because I knew the answer was just around the corner. Life is like that, most of the time our answer is just around the corner, but we give up before we round that corner.

It has been amazing the things I have tried on this porch. When one guy came to deliver a load of gravel, I asked him if he had ever removed carpet glue from cement before. He gave me a few suggestions.

I asked a guy that had stopped by my son’s home when I was working on their patio, what he would suggest to remove carpet glue. He had replaced the roof on their house and in talking to him, I found that he was in the business of doing numerous things over the years with house projects. He gave a great many suggestions.

I asked family and friends.

I searched YouTube.

We ordered a diamond grinding wheel for concrete that fit on my husband’s angle grinder. He used it on the end of the porch and all it succeeded in doing was making dips and divots in the concrete. It looked like the waves of the ocean. I looked at that and even thought of making a pattern of that across the porch— you know— like stamped concrete.

The stamped concrete look.

Okay… so I was totally desperate and that was a really dumb idea.

I finally took the advice of one of my sweet friends (Thanks, Elaine) and my daughter-in-law.

They said, “Why don’t you cover it up?”

This is what I needed to cover up.

My fears were… with all the dips, divots, and clumps of glue… whatever I covered it up with would show all those flaws. But I went back to what I originally wanted to put on the porch instead of painting, and I covered it all up. It took me most of a day, with sweat pouring down my face due to the heat and humidity, but that one day turned this project around.

I used peel and stick tiles from Lowes. The first two rows laid down nicely. The last row next to the wall involved careful measurements and cutting different sizes because the walls were uneven.

I’m totally happy with the results. Nothing shows through and it looks smooth and even.

The view of the tiles at the front door.

The view across the porch.

My other fear had been that they wouldn’t stick on that messed up porch, but I think because they are dark and heat up it helped set all the glue.

I spent three and one-half hours Saturday evening pressure washing off the side walks and concrete patios in front of the house and getting everything back to normal.

That project is over, THANK THE LORD!

Time to move on and finish another project. I have three more to work on:

• The DIY gravel patio around the pool.
• The cottage garden and path at the greenhouse.
• The garden. (It needs tons of weeding and care right now.)

“And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.” Psalm 90:17

I ran across this quote in my reading this morning and thought it would be fun to share it.

“The folly of being anxious about the near future is just as stupid as worrying about what will happen about a thousand years hence. We have to live in the present moment, because we can do nothing about the past, and God is doing everything about the future.” – George MacDonald

I hope you are having fun summer days, eating lots of fresh fruits and veggies in season, and letting God establish the work of your hands.

Are there any projects you are working on at the moment?