Porch project!

The upper half of our porch is lovely.  We love our Victorian design elements and all those things I don't really understand but I have been told are charming.  Unfortunately, it is sitting on top of a large slab of concrete which, I have been led to believe, is not charming. 

.Before - the bottom of the porch kind of looks like a big cinder block

Initially we tried putting bushes out front to hide the concrete, but we discovered that it takes time for bushes to grow.   Thus we decided to spice up the gray concrete slab by painting it.  And we chose a very exciting color...gray!  With a touch of blue.  And we bought a gray stain to brighten up the stucco underneath.

First we power washed the concrete to get out the stains and prepare the surface.  Unfortunately, when we power washed the stucco on the bottom of the porch we took off a fair bit of it.

A lot of people in the neighborhood have found lovely, historic elements under modern facades. We found cinder blocks...

But we decided to ignore that part and finish the top slab and the stairs.

After.  Sort of... this picture doesn't really show the part we worked on.

Now we just need to figure out what to do with the bottom part.  Any suggestions would be welcome.  Or we could just procrastinate long enough for the bushes to grow enough to cover it.