I Could Go On and On and On. . .: Curb Appeal

We are approaching our sixth anniversary of living in our current home. When we decided to move “home” six years ago, we were lucky to be able to move into the house that my grandparents spent almost all of their married lives in. Our house was built in the late 1940s, section by section, as my grandparents could afford to add on. When we moved in, we followed a single male renter that moved in after both of my grandparents passed away following years of failing health (both mentally and physically). Needless to say, our house was in need of some major L-O-V-E. For the first few years, we tackled the inside to make the main rooms more aesthetically pleasing on our tight budget—we still owned our previous house and had a new baby—in other words, I did A LOT of painting! Over time, and once our other house FINALLY sold, we were able to tackle bigger projects—plumbing, new siding, new windows, the addition of a walk-in closet etc. Recently our kitchen floor suffered major water damage and had to be replaced.

The leak is discovered. . . .

The hubby scraped up 3 layers of old flooring!

Layers of old flooring were removed and new tile went down. The change was dramatically wonderful!

Through all of these upgrades, there was one spot that I continued to neglect. . .the front porch.

You see, we are a “backdoor guests are best” kind of house, as our carport “directs” visitors to our side door. We rarely used the front door, let alone sat on the front porch. Really, the space was an embarrassment to me. I had two lovely wicker rockers, but the cushions had faded. We had a pint sized rocker for The Reporter, but it was covered in spider webs. The ceiling was a mess, the floor was peeling, and a bare light bulb dangled above as if to light the scene from a horror movie. I called it the “scary porch”. But this season, I was determined to change that. So when the hubby went out of town a few weeks ago, I attacked the porch.

I started by repainting the ceiling—did you know that southern front porch ceilings are to be painted blue, so that you always have a blue sky overhead? I followed that by using an epoxy on the floor and steps. I took The Reporter shopping and she picked this rug for inspiration:

Once we had our color scheme, we had fun choosing cushions, repainting the little rocker, stamping and sewing pillows, finding accessories, and repainting flower pots!