porch
Back Porch Update
In a brief burst of inspiration, I cut up my ultra-long fabric banner into three sections, and used it to add a dose of fun to the beige wall on the back porch.
Because we rent, I didn’t want to put any nail holes or anything on that wall, so hanging “real” art was out of the question. Read the rest of this entry »
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Back Porch Storage {Before & After, part 2}
So . . . I’m back, with the short but sweet Part 2 of the back porch cleanup. Sorry I just cut and run last night, but my post on Part 1 was getting much longer than expected – probably because of all my unnecessary cat photos – and I was really hungry for dinner!
The second part of the porch clean-up was pretty simple. This ratty old wooden shelf was too small and pretty much un-functional at the back door.
When I spied a white metal bookshelf at Ikea for only $19.99, I knew it was the perfect storage solution for the side of the porch. As hoped, the taller height adds a bit more visual interest to the otherwise boring wall, and the perforated mesh construction of the shelves means that no water will be pooling on them, etc.
Are you sensing a white and galvanized metal theme out here? If so, you’re right. I know it has nothing in common with our wood chairs and tables, but it was an affordable and cohesive storage solution. The galvanized metal buckets were actually flower pots that cost between $2 – $4 bucks at Ikea. Talk about cheap and easy storage. One big pot hold the gardening supplies I like to keep handy – gloves, scissors, a shovel, and bug spray. Another large pot (not pictured) holds our lighters, lighter fluid refillers, and “off” mosquito repellent coils. (Are we the only ones going absolutely CRAZY with the little blood suckers this year?)
And on a storage note – Sure, I could have made storage containers out of something I had on hand, but frankly I didn’t want to spend the time. Shocking, I know. You will rarely hear me say such things!
Further up the shelf, I added a sealed glass jar for seed storage, because you’ve gotta keep the moisture out of them. And I snagged two of these galvanized metal outdoor candle lanterns, too. I liked that they have covered (but vented) tops, so I could actually have lit candles in them without worrying about the flames shooting up to the shelf above.
I added a few plants just to dress things up a bit more. The top one is lemon balm, which is supposed to help repel insects too . . . and the large thing on the bottom left was supposed to be a hibiscus, but it’s slowly losing all its leaves. I think I need to return it to Home Depot.
Hey, at least I tried. And I’m oh-so-glad to have my porch back to its new and improved state of cleanliness and organization!
Whatever happened to that Redneck Porch? {Before & After, part 1}
Remember this hot mess from our Redneck Yard contest & party?
It was pretty bad, huh? A huge departure from the simple outdoor living room we created last summer.
We got the trash cleaned off the porch soon after the Redneck party, but the trash-picked vintage credenza languished on the porch for some time. But there’s nothing like a visit from a fellow home blogger to get your cleaning butt in gear!
So on the 4th of July, we celebrated our nation’s independence by liberating our porch of it’s mess.
First, we moved the vintage record player to the shed for the time being, because it still needs to be scrubbed out and refinished.
Then we moved everything that was staying to the yard.
Ryan first “swept” away the dirt of winter and spring, using his new electric broom. (I’m not joking, it’s really called that and he loves it. I think it’s somewhat absurd. though our walkways have never looked cleaner.)
Then he sprayed it down with the hose. It was disgusting – but rewarding – to see all the gray water running off the walls.
The Doctor supervised.
Finally, we moved everything back. And by “we” I mean “I.” Having done the light lifting, Ryan was called back inside by the siren that is World of Warcraft. Or Starcraft. Or PacMan. Who knows.
But I didn’t stop at that. Did you notice the chairs look a little different? Last season’s basic white cushions were looking a bit dingy, despite a few turns through the wash. And the chairs weren’t exactly cozy.
So I raided my stash of random fabric, and covered some big, squishy pillows for the backs of the chairs, and re-covered the existing dingy seat cushions. I was amazed at the difference it made, both in comfort and looks.
They were immediately feline tested, as well . . . and after the Doctor adjusted to the change (men never handle change well), he informed me that it was a-ok.
Though he liked the decor, he had to adjust it a bit in order to stretch out for a nap.
We needed a bit of watertight storage for our charcoal. (Yes, we use an old-fashioned charcoal grill. It’s economical and the food tastes great!) During a quick run to Ikea I found a ton of storage inspiration, including this white metal garbage can. It fit perfectly behind the chairs, right where we also stash the grill when it’s not in use.
It holds a boatload of charcoal. And maybe a cat.
The other side of the porch got a pretty major facelift. But I’m hungry for dinner, and Ryan is saying that if I don’t cook for him right now, he’s divorcing me. So I’ll catch you up on the other side tomorrow.
(PS: I’m only joking about Ryan. He never demands dinner. He’s amazingly patient like that.)
2011 Redneck Yard of the Year Contest
Are you ready to party?
Do you want to win a prize?
I wish you all were nearby so we could clink our glasses in a toast to the messes in our redneck yards, but since we can’t, this blog party will have to do. I think that sharing the worst of it helps motivate you to fix it up, while seeing that you are not alone – there’s other bloggers out there with less-than-perfect spaces!
Without further ado, allow me to give you a tour of the mess that is the Borrowed Abode’s yard.
As I said last week, I became totally lazy once winter hit, and thus my gardens are not looking good. Take the front garden, for example – it’s covered in some seriously healthy dandelions, as well as the old pots that held summer succulents.
Look closer and you’ll see that the remains of our Halloween decor didn’t all get removed – the pot of stones that held branches and one sad little ghost:
The grass in our front yard isn’t helping, either. For some reason the grass seed planted by the builders post-construction last spring turned brown quickly. We’ve re-seeded (both in the fall and early spring) but it doesn’t seem to be taking over as we’d hoped. So the brown yard may be out of our control.
Walk around to the back yard, and you’ll find a much more redneck situation: our back porch. I told you, I got lazy – and things just piled up back there. There’s truly no excuse for this sort of mess. Of course, the vintage stereo cabinet needs to come inside. You may also notice that there is no bottom step for the porch, so we have pieces of broken tile in its place. I’ll have to ask my landlord if they’re going to do that this year.
The area right below the porch isn’t looking so hot, either. We seeded it last fall (and this spring) and some of the grass is growing like crazy. But it’s not entirely filled in yet. If you remember, this is where we initially planned to build a patio.
Looking out over the back yard, it’s not too bad, but for the millions of branches everywhere. Between some seriously rough thunderstorms last fall, and the heavy snow in January, our beautiful tall trees lost a ton of branches. So we’ve got a lot to burn in our fire pit.
In fact, while I was driving overnight to Nashville, Ryan was at home looking at a fallen limb so big it actually covered 1/3 of the yard. The branch was the size of a medium tree – and it landed straight on end, so the tips of the branches speared the yard and the thickest, heaviest part of the branch (at least a foot in diameter) stuck straight up in the air – about 1 1/2 stories high. Imagine a teepee. That’s what it was like. A huge teepee of branches. (Why didn’t I get a photo!) Anyway, the remains of that branch/tree are piled here in the back, along with some metal shelving that I pulled from a neighbor’s trash pile.
I guess that’s a wrap. My hopes for the summer: clean up the yard, re-mulch and plant flowers in the front, turn the back porch into more of a decorated “room”, freecycle the swingset, and add a hammock and some lounge-y seating in the back of the yard.
Now, are you ready to party? It’s your turn to share your space.
2011 Redneck Yard of the Year Contest
Here’s how to enter:
- Blog about your yard – leave no mess un-shared! What if you don’t have a yard? Then share your patio or porch!
- Once you’ve blogged, come back here and share the link to that specific blog post in the linky tool below.
- Hop back to your blog (please) and let everyone know that you’re participating in the contest here. I’d really appreciate if you link back to this blog post. :)
- If you link up something totally unrelated, I reserve the right to remove that link.
Other details:
- You can share your link anytime between now and next Wednesday.
- Ryan, my parents, and I will all vote on who has the most “redneck yard.”
- The winner will be announced next Friday.
What’s the prize? The one lucky winner will be awarded a $25 gift card to Home Depot, to assist in the de-redneckifying of their outdoor space.
Note: I have not been compensated for this prize; in fact I’m providing it by redeeming some credit card rewards points. However, I’m in discussion with Home Depot and they may actually provide a gift card, in which case I’ll update this post to give a big thanks to them.
PSS: Christina at the Scrappy Housewife is also having a party: The “Reality Check” party. I’m totally sharing my mess over there!
Backyard & Patio Makeover: Part 2
With our dining room table relocated to a flat spot in our backyard, we had a lovely, empty, covered back porch to play with. Wahoo! Time to make an outdoor living room, and just in time for fall.
We may not have installed the back patio we’d dreamed up, but a cozy outdoor living space was even more exciting, because we love nothing more than curling up outside to enjoy both good rainstorms and clear, cool weather.
But first, here’s what it looked like before the furniture-moving adventures:
And here it is now:
Those two recycled plastic rugs that didn’t work so well as a mudcover ended up being the perfect size for our porch. We topped it with a pair of old This End Up chairs that we found on Craigslist for a whopping $5 total. Yeah, you read that right! I’ve always hated the old wood-crate style furniture like these chairs, but when brainstorming cheap outdoor furniture ideas they suddenly seemed like the perfect option. Here’s why:
- Their simple wooden construction and loose pillows (even the sofas and loveseats) make them easy to weatherproof: simply apply an outdoor-grade polyurethane coating to the wooden bits and recover the chair cushions in outdoor fabric. (That’s our plan.)
- They’re actually darn comfy.
- Most importantly, they’re so unwanted that people are practically giving them away on Craigslist. Either that, or asking wayyyy too much for them, in which case you just wait, and try again in a few weeks when they’ve realized their “beautiful classic This End Up living room set” is no longer worth $700.
We’d like to eventually find a matching loveseat or sofa, but for now the chairs suffice.
Though the $5 chair pair is not part of our Ikea outdoor furniture set, it matches pretty well – thanks to its natural wood construction. We pushed together two ottomans (that I bought thinking they were end tables) to create a long, low coffee table that has already served us well at many a small gathering. And between the two chairs we’ve placed Ryan’s vintage chrome and Lucite lamp. It’s funny, the lamp became part of the patio by accident. We certainly didn’t intend to put it out there, but one night I grabbed it to use when we simply couldn’t see our guests after the sun set. It didn’t really have a place in the new house, what with all the recessed lighting – so it just sort of made itself at home and stayed out on the porch.
So there you have it, our simple outdoor living space. It won’t win any design awards anytime soon, but it was affordable, and it’s cozy as heck.
This spring I’d love to add some hanging lighting, as well as long drapes to glam up the space (tied back to each of the posts, of course), and make coordinating weatherproof cushions for all the chairs. But in the meantime, well – we’re happy just the way it is.
There’s one more part to our outdoor makeover. Stay tuned!
Backyard & Patio Makeover: Part 1
I’ve been keeping our backyard/patio progress a secret from you! Here’s a quick recap since it’s been months since I discussed the space:
- In the end of August I shared our grand plans for installing a patio off our back porch, with the $400 cost being split between us and our landlord.
- One week later we put the brakes on that plan when we realized we’d underestimated the costs by about $350.
- We set about figuring out a new, much less expensive solution for our backyard / patio dilemma.
Here’s the problems we were trying to tackle with that plan:
- Our back porch was just a tad too small for people to sit at all sides of our outdoor dining table. In other words, there was always a danger of someone pushing their chair back from the table and falling off the side of the porch.
- The ground directly around our back porch and back of house was muddy and uneven, making it less than ideal for setting the dining table on – not to mention it looked just plain ugly when entertaining!
- We wanted a fire-safe space on which to use our above-ground fire pit.
- The area along the back of the house, where the trash cans and hose sat, was not draining well – creating yet more mud for the dogs to splash in.
Part 1: Creating an outdoor dining table space.
We decided to throw an outdoor rug down over the scrubby area, in the hopes that it would make it look better, keep the mud off the dogs’ feet, and define a space upon which to set the dining table. When I found this tough and colorful recycled plastic rug on Amazon, I knew I’d found a winner – because, according to Gaiam (the company that sells it), it was “handcrafted by Thai artisans who receive a fair wage for their craft.” Hello, fair labor rugs! And at $39 for a 4×6, it was affordable, too! (If only my living room rug search was that easy.)
Because 4×6 was the only size offered at the time (they now offer a a 6×9 for $89), we ordered two rugs. We couldn’t have been happier with the purchase. However, our scrubby ground was so uneven that they looked awful when laid over it. Backup Plan Fail.
So we tried a 3rd approach. We just plopped the dining table and chairs down on a flatter area of the yard, still near the back porch, and called it a day – with the “making a spot for the dining table” part of the plan, at least. Maybe it wasn’t the most glamorous outdoor dining space, but it was perfectly functional. And for a couple of renters, it was good enough – at least until next spring.
So that’s the first – and least exciting – stage of the backyard & patio makeover. It’s time for me to hit the sack. Stay tuned for the next installment, when I’ll show off our new outdoor living room, and share how we put those two rugs to good use!
*In the interest of full disclosure, while I was not compensated for my favorable comments on the Gaiam Recycled Plastic Rugs, the links are from my listing of the item in my Amazon Store, and I do receive a small percentage of sales made through it.
A seriously huge project!
As we’ve finally accomplished the biggest parts of our bedroom makeover (more on that on Monday) we’re diving headfirst into a bigger and scarier project. It’s gonna be awesome.
Between this weekend and next, we’re installing a brick patio off of our back porch. My fingers are crossed that we’ll be done by the end of Labor Day Weekend.
Why the rush? Because, as much as I don’t want to admit it, fall is right around the corner – and that means that it’s almost cool enough for nights spent sitting around the firepit.
But there’s more reasoning to this project than meets the eye. The main issue that sparked this idea was the muckiness of our backyard, especially after rain. And that muckiness all happens right beyond the back porch. Also, our back porch is great, but too skinny to comfortably accommodate our outdoor dining table and chairs. Someone’s always stuck sitting near the edge, and we know that someday someone will back their chair up too far and go heels over head off the porch.
That being said, do you want to see the new grand plan? Here it is:
As shown in the image above, the patio will have room for both a 60″ table and chairs and a grill. We’ll also tuck a firepit into one corner. A narrower length of patio will run the length of the house, covering the muddy mess and accommodating the water spigot and hose as well as the garbage cans. Then, once our patio dining set is at home in the new space, we’ll set up an outdoor living room type space on the existing [covered] back patio. From there we will gleefully curl up and enjoy many a rainstorm.
I just can’t wait!!
Now, if you know how we can get a coupon for Home Depot, please share! And if you’ve ever tackled this sort of project before, and have advice or warnings, please dish the dirt!
New Abode, Part 9: Back Yard & Porch
It’s time for the final stop in the tour of our new rental home: the back yard and porch. It’s a great space just oozing with potential; potential that right now is just not being realized. . . yet.
One of our must-haves for our new home was a yard, and this one is just perfect. It’s a good size for a neighborhood within walking distance of Vienna’s downtown area, and the abundance of mature trees makes me very, very happy. The two large storage sheds are just a total bonus.
And here we have the back porch, as seen the yard. It needs some serious decorating work. We’re having trouble growing grass in the part of the yard closest to the porch – but it’s come a long way from the bare mud puddle it was when we moved in. We’ve gotten permission from our landlord to install a brick or stone patio in front of the porch, because the area doesn’t drain well after rain. As an added bonus, I think it will really pull the whole space together more.
This doesn’t look too cohesive, does it? I’ve got my great Acacia Wood patio furniture from Ikea, but I’d like to make the space rock much more with a rug, some lighting, and a better furniture layout.
Have I mentioned that Ryan and I both love thunderstorms? During the storms we like to sit right here and enjoy them.
Regardless of the state of the decor, I do enjoy working and relaxing on the porch.
I plan to transform it into a beautiful and uber-functional outdoor lounge, like the many outdoor spaces I’ve loved in Miami. And that’s exactly what’s next on my list, as soon as the bedroom makeover is complete – so stay tuned!
