Screened in Porch The Final Reveal

 One of the very very last things we needed to complete before selling our last home was the painting of the screened in porch. yes... ALL of this was painted by my husband, by hand. nbd.

You can read all the specifics here, here, here, and here.

Before:

After:

Before:

yes those are broken doors, half painted floors, a hot tub, a landing, a wall mounted tv. It's so sad to see how bad things look when they sit empty. I bet if staged properly this would have sold this house in an instant!

After:

As you can see we replaced all the screen, dropped in a tray ceiling, added some roller shades for privacy, and painted everything.

And here are a few more angles :)

Everything looks so light and fresh. I just wish we had gotten the ceiling painted the light blue.

(blue distracts the insects, they think its the sky)

 Before:

 Filling in the floor from the hot tub.

And the After:

again... i wish we finished the ceiling.

These angles and transformations REALLY show the before.

All of the bamboo and worn off wood was removed. The fence was pressure washed and sealed.

From Wash to Stain

Remember my post from a few weeks back about my wooden spool for our patio???
Out with the old in with the old??

Well I attempted to gray wash it and the wood just Soaked it up...

Second attempt I went out to the garage to discover I had a decent amount of stain left from working on our front door ;)

After a quick hour in amazing spring weather and Tada!!

Very excited to start dining around this table this spring!

Thank you Restoring Piece of Tuscaloosa, Alabama for such a unique piece!

Now time to style the table and enjoy a nice grilled dinner on the porch!

The deal of the century.

Okay sooo... I have a bargain hunting obsession. 

First was my double jogger.

Then the baby bjorn bouncer! 

Remember This post? 

Then the childrens shoenhut baby grand piano (it stays at my parents).

So now i go in stores with no agenda and what I find I find... Well I found this set of patio chairs at my recent visit to Essex!

They are from Walmart and retailed for 599.99. Not what I originally envisioned for our screened in porch but promising.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a decent style at Walmart!! I never go in there!

The box said half off.

I shook my head in disbelief when I realized this was a box of SIX chairs for $31.00!!!!!!! 

Yes thirty one!!!! 

I ran to the register with the price tag in hand to snag this thing! That means I got the chairs for about 2.50 a chair and the cushions per chair for about 2.50!!

Shocker!!

It was brand new and I was soo proud of this deal! 

Now to find a table.... Hmmm. I will post an actual picture once we get the swivel mechanism on the "end" chairs. 

These suckers are Heavy!

Have you guys found any "out of this world" deals lately?? 

 Would love to hear about them!

Screened in Porch sort of "Reveal"

This was hands down the biggest undertaking in this house. 

We removed a coy pond, a hot tub, 5 trees, a deck, installed a ceiling, rewired the electrical, installed new stairs, did some landscaping, and finally styled the space.

Whew!!

It was tiring back breaking work and sadly we have never finished the painting part. 

Super sad, but glad to finally be doing a round up of the project.

Here are the links to the before:

Here, here, here, and here.
Before:

During:

(after removing and filling in the pond with 4 loads of dirt)

And the Almost Completed After:

Here is a picture during the process, we were swinging the baby after finishing filling in the floor.

Here you can see here how we back up to the interstate.

And this is the walkway around the side of the guesthouse to the "very" back yard.
And the "very" back yard. A double cement wall to buffer the sound of I-240.
Really, the sound of rush hour traffic isn't bad at all. Promise.

And the whole "guesthouse"

Here is the door to the guest house.

painted BM antigua

Here is the exterior of the porch.

No, the painting of the ceiling or the exterior trim was not completed. 

That was supposed to happen last summer when I was very very sick in my early pregnancy.

Trust me I tried to paint on a slanted ladder but my husband wouldn't allow me to. haha

Here is my crafting/painting table live in action. haha

This table was so graciously given to me by a friend of a friend. 

My sweet friend ashlea got this for me (from Nikki, thanks again!!) while a local Bath and Bodyworks was being remodeled. They had placed several of these tables in the DUMPSTER!!! can you believe that????

Last look, before.

And After.

May not be perfect but it is a Heck of alot better than the before!!

I would say after "completing" this project the screening was the easiest, followed by replacing the floor.

And the rewiring the electrical was the hardest/most frustrating!

Thanks for staying with me through this 3 year renovation!

If it weren't so hot I would spend some more time out here under these awesome fans! 

Spring Fling

Sad to see the Spring Fling come to an end.. but I have alot to share with all of you!

So... I did ALOT over spring break I have been holding out on... 

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even with a broken foot I pressed on so I would have plenty to share with yall. 

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I made a new arrangement for the front door.

and I bought some spring decor for the yard.

{my sister said this "cluster" is too much so I am considering dispersing some of these things around the front of the house.}

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I did things like landscape the front and some of the back yard.

{bleeding heart on the left and begonia on the right}

{boxwood, creeping jenny, and english ivy}

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Then the bulk of the work was done on the screened in porch.

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YES finally after all this time, we are wrapping things up.

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My father -in-law again came to our rescue and helped us put up our ceiling all by himself. 

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He is genius I tell ya!! 

 {originally we wanted beadboard, but while we were at the store my FIL got a vision and I let him use his mad skills/know how and do his thing}

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Must say it looks better than I could have EVER imagined!!!

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Oh, yeah.... i almost forgot....

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He also put up all the screen we needed replaced and got a good bit of the verticle slats up too!!

{still needed to be done is hang rest of slats, paint ceiling, install stairs and french doors... oh and please don't judge my half-painted porch, our spray gun has a mind of its own so the rest of this painting will be done with a brush... yes VERY TIME CONSUMING!!!!}

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Can I have it finished by easter?? I sure hope so..

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Also made some really cute placemats to add to the etsy shop.

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Be back tomorrow with more spring decor...

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and did I mention there are several new earrings for our Spring 11' collection.

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Hop on over to our Facebook page to see.

Spring Fling

When I think spring I go CRAZY!!

Grass grows, tulips bloom, people's spirits begin to rise, this is when I feel the heavens sing!

I have been wanting to finish up our screened in porch for quite some time.

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Walk down memory lane, shall we??

Our house came with a hot tub, which we removed...

And a really unstable deck, which we removed...

And a coy pond, which we had already removed in this picture and were waiting to fill in...

{pond removal}

Now that the hot tub area is filled in, the pond area leveled and sodded its time to wrap this project up.

We need install the beadboard ceiling, stain the porch floor, paint a few more boards, add some fresh screen, and ... my fave... accessorize!!!

{I am really letting it "all hang out" for yall ps, this work was completed in June 10' and I am just now sharing... ashamed?? maybe... but we are so close to the end now.}

{notice in the middle we were laying out the ground work for a fire pit. this will be removed, great idea in theory but with a 2 yr old chasing your dog... not so much. I dont want to go to the emergency room}

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ps.... see how much shade this back yard has.. thats due to no tree trimming for at least the last 10 years. 

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well that was taken care of on friday by my new hero.... our mr. fix it my mom went to high school with.

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before photos.

{yes we back up to the interstate, no I don't hate it, no its not loud, how do I plan to disguise it?? guess you will have to wait and see}

{we have already removed 6 baby trees on our own previous to this picture... I live in pine needle land!}

mr. bradford pear, I love your shape... hate your droppings and hate your spring smell.

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plus you were a mere 18' from my house so you had to go.

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disclaimer: I am very well aware only a small portion of my porch is white, I am only sooo tall and felt unstable on a old shaky ladder so we hope to take care of all of that ugly brown withing the next 2 weeks!!! I promise we are not "in the ghetto/ white trash" 

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please don't judge my abrupt halting of project... I am waiting on muscles and manpower to help me wrap this up.

all my limbs piled out at the street.

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I went to grab my recycling bin this morning and a nice man was collecting the neighbors trimmings{city sanitation worker, he informed me he would move my heaping pile to the top of the list!! U ROCK MISTER and deserve a city employee of the day award!!!!!}

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Within 2 hours this is what baby and I watched for a good 20 minutes.

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see, all government workers aren't bad!!

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Now, back onto the porch...

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Here is something we found hanging from one of our pine trees when we purchased the home.

{this is the chandy taped off and ready for spray paint}

Our plan for our screened in porch is to have a very "Key West" feel. 

We are wanting to white wash all the flooring, ceiling, spindles and bring our colors in through our furniture and accessories.

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Think turqouise, yellow, orange; very bright and tropical!!

So a turqouise chandelier was step one to put some pep in my step and get me ready for spring!!

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I hope to have this hanging for the reveal, but I am finally seeing some headway on this project and it feels good!!!!

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Time for some inspiration photos...
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Shall we?

artwork for outdoors?

holy dream house... you make my knees weak.

{source unknown}

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{decorpad}

{via decorpad}

{via country living}

{via decorpad}

Hopefully we will have this spring bug stay with us so we can get our space looking like this in no time. 

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What are you working on this spring??

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spring cleaning anyone??