The back porch has never really been a priority since we still have so much to complete on the more visible areas of the house. But we've tried to make the best of it until we can give it the attention it deserves. During the entire construction period and for the first 8 months that we lived here, it was basically a storage area for lumber and other building supplies. But with the arrival of warm weather came the desire to utilize the porch the best we could. So one kid-less day I went outside and arranged all the lumber, etc. so that it only took up about one third of the porch instead of the whole:
July 2010
That's the way we used the porch all last summer, and we really enjoyed it. Then, this past March, I got the notion that if we moved all those bags of cement and other baggy-things (up against the far-left window), we'd have even more porch at our disposal. So, at my request, my hulking husband moved 30 eighty-pound bags around the house and into the garage. And it was awesome!
March 2011
Then I got the idea that we might make it even better for Lee's birthday party later in the month if all the lumber was used up/found a new home permanently. Most of it was scrap and wouldn't ever be used, so we kept the few pieces that were good, and got rid of the rest. It was so great to have the whole porch to host Lee's party.
Then I started thinking that since we already had the stucco material (remember all those 80-pound bags?), that maybe we could go ahead and finish the walls to cover the block since the porch will probably remain this way for at least another year. That wonderful man of mine obliged and not only stucco-d the walls, but painted them to match the rest of the house...all in time for Jessalyn's outdoor crafty birthday party!
May 2011
We were able to bring two rattan love seats that we already owned outside to make it more porch-y feeling. I added a bright rug to the mix, so it really feels like an outdoor room now. We are gonna be spending a lot of time out there this summer, that's for sure!
May 2011
