I Want A Porch! Part 4-The Finale

Making our front seating area has really been a long process. Mainly because it is competing with other areas of the house and weather and laziness. We left off here which was all about buying the bushes. Since then we planted them of course and leveled out the dirt.

And I began to churn up the grass to create a place for flowers:

The next day we went and purchased some black eyed Susan's and mums!

If you look closely you will see the mums are a bit damaged. We bought 5 of them on sale for $3.00 each because of the damage. We knew they looked a bit funny, but we were patient to see how they'd progress. This photo was taken last fall (2010) when we planted them. Since then we also updated some of the other unsightly areas of our house front from the purchase date. We replaced this light:

With this light:

 We painted our house numbers from gold:

To black:

Took off the front door:

Painted it black...

Temporarily forgot how to use my camera, hence the blue hue. Painted the shutters from faded green to black:

We added a welcome mat:

We spray painted the Craigslist white wicker furniture that we purchased, espresso brown:

It was really pretty and why I don't have a completed photo I have no idea. The lazy us kept saying that we need to finish the wicker set by protecting the paint...but we never got around to it. So after torrential April and May downpours and neglecting to either cover up or move the furniture into the garage, it eventually succumbed to the elements and is now a white and brown speckled set:

Yep, we are those people. I was even going to re-cover the cushions in this lovely burnt orange fabric but once I realized that the outdoor canvas fabric was $19.99 a yard and I was only able to get one cushion covered; it just made since to purchase new cushions.

Oh, and back to that torrential rain this past spring that I previously mentioned, though it kind of messed up the wicker (along with our neglect of course) it did cause our little decrepit mums to grow into a rather large mum hedge of sorts.  People would say "have you always had that hedge?". We'd respond, it's actually 5 mums all melded into what looks like a large hedge. Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of it. We weren't sure how to feel about it and thought about cutting them back due to their size. That is until August hit. Almost suddenly that giant green hedge that just a year ago were 5 small decrepit mums turned into a beautiful red mum vision.

So there you have it. For the most part the seating area is finished. Now we just need to fill our flower boxes with fall flowers and gourds and add a wreath! What you can't see in this view is that there are purple and white petunias planted on the inside of the green bushes. Those are for us to look at when we are sitting in the area; they also look great from inside the house. There were also petunias in front of the mums for passersby to see (last year we had black eyed Susan's in front of the mums). Unfortunately the overgrown mums blocked them from getting any sun and they soon died. The floral decor will of course change with the season but I have to say we did pretty good in comparison to our not to scale photoshopped image:

And it's a far cry from where it was when we moved in:

Can you believe it. We're done! I finally have my "front porch" of sorts :-)

Tatum

I'm linking to A Little Knick Knack

Thin Is Not In

As you saw from reading here, you know that we've been on a mission to create a larger seating area in front of our house. We visualized what we wanted so we photo-shopped a rough idea of it to give us a guide of sorts:

Not necessarily those specific flowers, wicker furniture or window boxes...but you get the idea.  Oh, and that pile of dirt on the left is to be overlooked. It wasn't quite part of our photo shop-vision lol. Anyway, to get to something similar to this, it required a lot of work.

We had to pickup the paver stones that were previously laid down. We had to churn the dirt which was so hard given that it was full of clay! We also had to level out the ground where it dips down a bit:

After getting the ground leveled, we went to Oakland Nursery to purchase some soil, weed prevention stuff and some of the baby globe arborvitae bushes just to see how they'd look. 

Yea, pretty wimpy. Not quite what we had in mind, but I guess they'll have to do! Even if they are all small and stupid looking. We didn't purchase them all because we weren't quite sure how many we'd need. The next week we went to a different branch since we were on that side of town and purchased more bushes! Hey, wait a minute...this store has much cheaper bushes! And they're bigger!!!

Here is a better comparison:

With this comparison I'm thinking you have got to be kidding me. Isn't that a shame? Who knew that if you just happened to be at another store that there would be such a difference. There is however another shame that I must confess to. For the week that we had the underfed, skinny bushes...we kind of denied them water. It wasn't out of spite and anger of their thinness, it was mainly because we just dropped the ball, but hey, in our defense it did rain a couple days. 

That lack of watering effort did not go unnoticed when we returned the malnourished globe babies. The helpful man in the gardening section who helped take the overpriced little globes out of the car said "what happened to them?" We honestly hoped that nobody would notice the dried out withering wafer thin plants. Our response, " you overpriced those skinny little suckers so we're better dealing them for new better chubby bushes! And to get you back for such retail abuse we denied them food and water just to give you a taste of your own medicine!" We said with fire in our eyes. Oh, but we did let them know that God provided them rain to save their lives. 

Ok, ok... it didn't quite happen that way. Though he did ask why they looked dry, and we responded that though we did water them, we missed a day or so. We told him that we were permitted to return them since we found a better deal. He then said, no problem they bounce right back anyway! As we drove away and headed over to get our healthy, green, well fed, cheaper new bushes I thought to myself, hopefully those skinny barely bushy souls find a nice home where thin is in.

Tatum

Spring = Snow!!

Due to the fact that I cannot believe that it is spring and it snowed today, I think it only fitting that I talk about spring stuff! I mean when I saw the snow falling I freaked out, ran through the house closed all the blinds and turned on every light in the house to keep the spirit of spring alive. Since mentally I'm already in spring I thought I'd bring you up to speed on our outside seating area. I left off with it looking like this:

 

 It was a cute little area especially compared to how it looked when we moved in

 

You can read all about that transformation here. Well we knew soon after creating this little area that we were eventually going to need an area large enough to accommodate more people. What we didn't expect is the unexpected extra work that it was going to entail. It all started when we went to Chicago on a little trip in the winter. When we returned, the middle of the three bushes in the front of the house was decimated! Completely smashed from the snow that slid off of the roof of the house. The other two bushes were also a bit damaged so we figured, lets dig them up and go ahead and expand the front area. digging up the bushes was a lot of work:

Two down and one to go:

Can you see the kind of space we're going to be working with? You can also see where I noted some additional items that we have to work on.  And remember the red bricks the prior homeowners left us? Well there were a few left:

And we almost came out of this unscathed but ran into some wild animals buried beyond the bricks and bushes:

We still have a long way to do but I'll be getting you up to speed real soon! After all this snow can't last all spring right?

Tatum

I Want A Porch! Part 3- The Semi-Finale

As the grass became greener the plan began to develop.  What we knew for certain is that it was time to get rid of the prior owners unsightly red builders bricks. So what did we do? Head over to the giant hardware store close to our home:

Because we were building something together!!! When we got there we knew we were looking for patio pavers but it took us a while to decide on which pavers we wanted. I personally believe that there are too many to choose from, especially for an indecisive me. Fortunately, the other half of our twosome can make a decision pretty quick. So after letting me stew for about 20 minutes he made a decision:

Portage Stone it is! And there was no going back because this photo was taken from our trunk in our driveway.  The decision had been made, and what a great decision it was. Now what could make that decision extra great? Flowers!! Only it wouldn't happen that fast.

The stone sat for a day or so and we hadn't gotten around to getting the flowers. Then the next day while I was at work Chris called me to ask what type of flowers I wanted. I didn't really know, so I told him pretty ones that are colorful! I'm sure he was shaking his head thinking seriously? I was just excited that we were back in action and that he was planning ahead so that we could get down to business after work.

Then as I was pulling up to the house from work ready to meet Chris to shop, there was no need to shop because he had a little surprise for me:

Petunias, New Guinea Impatiens O MY! I was super psyched!! He had taken the day off to make the front of our house pretty! Now let me remind you how the outside of the house looked when we purchased it at the end of 2008:

 An under cared for home with a notice to cut the grass on the door. Then throughout the winter months it had turned into:

The same home only with a little TLC. Then after our labor and prep:

Here is a closer view:

And from inside the house:

Isn't is adorable!!!! Now as the title of this post notes, this is the semi-finale. Though it was the perfect little spot for Chris and me to sit and read or visit, we later realized that one day when the house is further together we'll want company. So, this past summer we began to plan for that.

So stay tuned! It may be a while but as you already know we have a lot of other projects to keep you entertained in the meantime :-)


Tatum

I'm linking to The Trendy TreeHouse! Check her out!

I Want A Porch! Part 2

Structural Building Bricks Are Our Friends. At least they became our friends instead of the eyesores that they were.

As you read here we were on a mission to create a seating area and prove to our neighbors that we were in fact people who cared about the look of our home; unlike the jungle keepers that used to live here and created the landscaping below. With winter having passed, most of the crazy brush...

had died:

And we decided to put the red building bricks to work. With their help we began thinking of what type of layout we wanted to create for our own landscaping. We dug up weeds, and we ripped out the two trees along with what seemed like a ton of bushes.

We laid grass seed:

The ground was extremely hard and full of clay that felt like rocks. The neighbors warned us of the challenge we had ahead of us dealing with the soil, but we were determined to make a dent.

 So we watered:

 

Then we waited.

Tatum

I Want A Porch! Part 1

When we purchased this home we mainly did so because we loved the neighborhood, the house had all of the rooms we wanted and a perk was that it was actually equal distance from each of our jobs. However there was one thing that this house did not have that I have always wanted...A porch. An area to sit, read and people watch. If not a porch a deck would work just as well...then again, a porch would actually be preferable.

We learned in this house buying process that unless you are rolling in dough that you might have to make a concession or two until you can purchase your next home.

Do you remember what the front of our house looked like?

Could you see yourself sitting out here? Exactly. And the back of the house left much to be desired:

Can you say DOUBLE WHAMMY?! Thank goodness for Starbucks and Barnes and Noble.

Well if you remember we closed on our house on Halloween of 2008 and were heading into winter, so the front of our home was not our immediate concern. Well until the snow fell we did cut the grass but that was about it. Over the winter and into spring we patched up and painted walls, we shampooed carpets over and over again and we installed hardwood floors.  Once Spring was upon us it was time to tackle the jungle.  And we were ready, grass seed and shovels in hand:

And we were on a mission to build a PORCH!! of sorts...well more accurately a little seating area. This was Chris's bright idea to make me happy...he's so good to me. We were also on a mission to prove to our new neighbors that we were so much better at taking care of our home than the prior homeowners. Be sure to come back to see what happens next!


Tatum

I'm linking to It's So Very Cheri Check her out!