The Observation Deck

I am looking to sand down my front porch to repaint it and was wondering if there is anywhere in Lakewood where I could rent such a floor sander?

Probably Alternative Rentals on Hilliard. You need the drum sander as well as an edged sander. If you don't want to tackle the job yourself I have a good referral for you.
Stan

For the last floor I did, I looked all over and Alternative Rentals was the only place that had them. Unfortunately, they only had drum sanders and edgers; my experience is that while drum sanders do a good job, they only do it in the hands of very experienced people. Without that experience, it is very easy to dig some trenches in your floor. For the inexpert, a square random orbital sander is less aggressive, so you have to make more passes, but it does a better job of giving you a level surface, and when I took off the molding, I was able to work right up to the edge, even in the corners, which saved me from wrestling an edger.

These sanders I found at Home Depot. I have an emotional reaction against recommending such stores, because they have driven out so many real hardware stores. But in this case I dealt with them, and their service was good.

Thanks for the info and tips.