This “Bland” Front Porch Got a Gorgeous Brick Glow-Up for Just $1,200
There’s nothing better than a home entrance that makes you smile right when you walk in the door. And after several years of living with a lackluster front porch, Ashley Straus (@colormarblebrickwood) finally has something that makes her feel proud every time she walks up to the house.
She spent a long time trying to nail the front door color, and eventually landed on a minty seafoam green: Benjamin Moore’s Healing Aloe. She also spent several years painting her concrete steps, “often with a bland gray color that wouldn’t compete with the darker gray siding of my house,” Ashley describes. “But the paint always chipped and just never offered the level of warmth I was looking for.”
Brick steps warm up the entrance.
During the Spring 2025 One Room Challenge, Ashley decided to give installing bricks a go. “I’ve always loved the look of brick and, over the years, got several bids for people to convert my concrete steps to brick but it was soooooo expensive,” she says. Quotes came in around $2,500, but Ashley did it herself for a little over $1,000 — plus tons of elbow grease.
“After seeing a bunch of Instagram posts with people putting thin brick over their steps, I knew I wanted to give it a shot,” she says, and she used Old Mill Midtown thin bricks and brick corners to do the project.
“I was trying to figure out a way to cut the brick without a wet saw but then just bought one because I knew in the end it would make things much easier,” she says. “For some reason, I always fight getting new tools … [but] the right tools are the most important first step!”
The beadboard ceiling detail was surprisingly easy.
Something that was a lot easier — and a lot less messy — than the brick was the beadboard ceiling. “I also have always loved those big porches with blue beadboard ceilings,” she says. “I didn’t have the big porch, but I had an idea that I was eager to try that would help me incorporate that feature,” she says.
She added beadboard, painted it the same color as the front door, and “it only took half a day,” she says. “I don’t even know if people will notice it, but I know it’s there, and every time I walk up to my front door and look up, I smile.”
The Adirondack chairs got some TLC.
Another detail that Ashley loves from her front yard refresh is the Adirondack chairs. They were there before, but she gave them a spruce-up (because they’d been sitting out all year) by sanding and staining them with a blend of Minwax stain colors, then sealed everything with an exterior sealant in a satin finish.
Best yet, she’s had the chairs for 10 years. “Over the years, I’ve just refinished them when needed,” she says. “It always feels super satisfying to breathe new life into something old with history.”
Ashley shares her home with her husband, two sons, and her dog. “I have so many memories of my boys sitting on those chairs when they were little, and now they’re big-time teenagers!” she adds.
New plants finish the front yard.
“In addition to my ugly chipping steps that definitely needed some love, it was early spring, and my pots were full of dead plants and weeds after a long, cold winter,” Ashley says. Her white iceberg roses, lavender, and ivy make the entrance a lot more welcoming.
This project was completed for the Spring 2025 One Room Challenge, in partnership with Apartment Therapy. See even more of the One Room Challenge before and afters here.
Inspired? Submit your own project here.