Summer on the back porch and a storage/playhouse makeover!!

Hello everyone! It’s been a busy summer here, and the heat and humidity have been unusually horrible making all outside work miserable.

I did finish cleaning up my back porch, and that inspired me to do some more work in the back yard as well. First I had to pressure wash, scrape and sand paint and stain, then re-stain all the exposed decking and steps and paint all the exposed wood railings.

For styling, I just used things I had – pillow covers, fabrics, etc., to style this into a comfortable farmhouse porch.

I made a bow for the cinnampn broom using extra fabric I had stored and pulled out some toile pillopw covers I made years ago. I made the ticking stripe covers also many years ago.

I had actually made a tab curtain out of the plaid fabric, then realized it was perfect to be sewn into a pillow cover for this chair.

I’ve really been enjoying mornings out here, and I’m loving this devotional book a member of my worship team gave me. It’s so appropriate for me considering my love for God’s creation here in these beautiful mountains.

After getting all this cleaned up, I decided to do a little makeover on the storage and playhouse Luis built 17 years ago. What a wonderful building this has been, and we have used it for most of our storage.

These are some BEFORE photos:

The steps had rotted – we live in the woods by a creek so moisture is a serious issue here, so I decided to build some temporary steps until he can get time to do a more complete and permanent makeover.

And here is the AFTER:

I built platforms that can be removed and used as much scrap wood as I could for the decking.

I also had to sand and paint the screen door as well as all the trim, doors and windows .

I also brought rocks from the creek (there are tons of rocks from Hurricane Helene) and remade the flower beds as well as the rock paths.

I love how it turned out, and this will be fine until Luis can repair the entire building.

I also hauled rocks from the creek to place under my favorite resting spot here. I’ve watched my kids play, bird watched and rested from the garden many times here over the last 17 years, and it’s still a favorite spot.

I’m so excited to have gotten some of this completed, as we just feel like we’re so behind because of the hurricane damage, trees down, etc., so we feel like we’re making progress!

There is a video linked with lots of behind-the-scenes footage as well as other areas I worked on so be sure to check that out!

For fun, here is a link to the same back porch ten years ago!!

Thanks for coming by friends!!

 

Anita