Changes on the front porch

Have you ever decorated an area and then go back a few weeks later and change it?  I just can't seem to get the front porch exactly the way I want it to look.  I thought that I liked it this way.

 But now I am thinking more this way.

 I am still not sure which I like better.  Of course most of these cannot stay on the porch otherwise it will blow away.  Here are a few more pictures.

Still not sure which way to go.  I will probably change it again one more time before I will decorate for fall. I just can't help myself.

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My back yard and goodwill finds

I usually don't like for anyone to see my back yard.  We will have lived here for two years in August.  When we first looked at the house the landscaping is what made me not want to buy this house but once I went inside it was a different story.  I knew that I could make this house work for me.

I love to garden but lately I don't have much time.  I dug out everything in the front yard last year and replanted.  This year I just don't have to time to do the back yard.  It needs to have all the rock removed, cleaned, new fabric and then replace the rock.  We decided to hire this out.  Of course I will be doing all the new planting myself.

I forgot to get some before pictures of the bushes along the back fence so here is some photos from the original listing.  This is the front of the house.

I tried to crop this picture so you can see the lamp post area.  It came out blurry but you can see how overgrown this area is. It had three bushes and some daylillys around it.  I removed the bushes and kept the daylillys.

 We  changed out the light fixture and added a trellis for the clematis that I planted.  Here is what it looked like last year.

 Here is what the front yard looks like right now.  Most of the flowers are still not full grown yet.

Now for the back yard.  This is the only picture I could find on the listing where you can see part of the bushes along the back on the right corner of the picture. I also trimmed out the choke cherry bush at the bottom of the stairs.  There wasn't a fence when we bought it so we had one installed since we have two small dogs and we back up to open space.

Here is what the back yard looks like now.  They are almost done with getting the rock finished and they are also putting in a new paver path on the side of the house.

I am so ready to get some flowers in this area.

Here is what the pathway looked liked when we moved in. I don't know why anyone would install the edging like this. Pretty gross!   I am grateful that this is on the side of the house where no one can see it.

Now this is how it looks before the pavers go in.  It looks 100% better.  We would probably leave it like this but if we have a heavy rain it will just keep washing the breeze away.

Now onto the Goodwill finds.

I told myself that I do not need anymore soup tureens as I am running out of room but when it is marked $5.99 and is half off I couldn't resist.

I also found this nightstand for $7.99.  It is in pretty rough shape as someone tried to paint it but didn't do a very good job.  I am thinking about refinishing it and putting in the corner on my back porch.

Back porch blues (and greens)

I know that I said I was going to wait to decorate underneath the deck but I just couldn't resist.  It looked so bare yesterday I just had to see how part of  it was going to turn out.  I still need to decorate the end tables and the back corner.  I have most of the stuff I am envisioning will look good there and need to revamp some items.  I also want to get some outdoor curtains for this area and probably on the upper deck too.

Here is what I did this afternoon on my lunch break.  I had to put everything back in the house after I took pictures as it was getting windy.  That is one downfall of living near the foothills.

I have also had a red color or rust color for my cushions but I am kinda liking this green and blue.  It seems so relaxing.

Here is a peek of what my furniture looked like before I painted it.

This looks much better.

 I can't wait for the roof to put on our deck.  They said it would take about two weeks to get the framing done.  Some how I have heard that before. Ah yes, from the movie The Money Pit.  They were always asking when it would be done and they were told two weeks.  I hope it doesn't drag on.

Here are the rest of the pictures.

I might just work on the items for the corner and the end tables and get some pictures even though I can't keep them out.  They will be cutting out the cement by these columns and pouring piers and new concrete so I don't want any of these near to get splashed on.  Any suggestions on the color of curtains I should put out here?

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New patio furniture

Not really, but it looks new.  I have had this furniture let's see now for 10 years.  These are the third set of cushions that I have purchased.  I let my hubby decide on the pattern this time.  They actually match the color of the house.  Now are you ready for the scary before pictures.  I'll warn you that these are pretty bad.  Please excuse the mess as when we moved in this area was used as a catch all.

 Here they are.  These cushions have been on here now for 8 years.  I really should have replaced them a few years ago but I could never find anything that I liked.

The bench and the plant stand have been made over also.  I don't have any after pictures of the plant stand yet I still have a few more things to do to it.


We are going to have the deck above covered so I can't really decorate here yet.  They are going to have to cut out half of the concrete and put in piers under the three columns.  Of course we couldn't be lucky that the columns would already have the piers underneath but since part of the concrete is cracked it will get fixed at the same time.

Now for the rest of the after pictures.  I used a metallic oil rubbed bronze spray paint.  This is one of my favorite colors.  It goes great with the new cushions.

 

Here is the garden bench before picture.  I haven't painted this in about 4 years and it is looking pretty nasty.  I have had this bench for 12 years now and it is holding up nicely.  I'll warn you it is gross.

 Now it is beautiful again.  Right now I have it next to the basement door.  We are having all of our rock redone in the yard so I have to wait to put it in it's new home.

Here is where the bench will go.  When we had the landscapers remove the bushes along the fence and under the stairs they unfortunately removed the two under the bedroom window (which I told them in the beginning to leave alone).

 I had two pretty spirea bushes here. I don't feel like planting new ones so here is the bench's new home. They will be burying the downspout so it won't look to ugly.

I have so many plans for decorating this area.  I can't wait to get started.  I am ready for the landscapers to finish the rock areas so I can plant my flowers and for our covered deck to be done.  This is what the deck area looks like right now.

I can't wait for this eyesore to be gone.  We will have lived here for two years in August and it looked like this when we moved in.   Once they get it done I can paint the furniture up there.  We have had that furniture for 12 years now and it is peeling on the tables.

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Kitchen chair makeover

I have been very busy this weekend.  We are taking a little mini vacation and closed the store for 4 days.  I will have to go back to work on Wednesday so I have been trying to get a lot of projects done.  I did get the kitchen chair seats redone yesterday.  Here is what the they looked like when we bought them.

I recovered them about four years ago with a red fabric.  This is what they looked like before the makeover.

Now for the new fabric. This is what I choose.

  I have five chairs total.  Four at the the table and one at the desk area.  I didn't buy enough fabric so I decided to keep one of the chairs red for now and use it at the desk.  Here is the finished project.

I think that they go much better against the red wall as the old fabric was just a bit lighter red than the walls.

On the table is a sneak peek at how I am going to dress the table.  I don't have everything I need but here is what I have so far.

Here are some of the before  projects I have been working the past few days.  Check back for the afters.

I also repainted the patio furniture that is below the deck.  I can't seem to find my before pictures.  I think they might be on my computer at work.  I sure hope so because I got it all painted and wanted all of you to see how it looked.
I got two more days to go.  I want to get the area below deck all fixed up since I also bought new cushions for the furniture. Hopefully I can get that done tomorrow.  

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