My Favorite Place...In this House Part II

Anyone ready to see the actual completed front porch? Say I. I. 

In case you forgot the "chocolate" brown sill from "before", here it is again...

And (insert drumroll) is the finished paint job. 

Here's the east end "before" complete with toddler photobomb.

And here (drumroll again if you please) is the east end, all pretty and cream.

We have fourteen windows on the front porch. FOURTEEN. We have screens for the warm months and glass for the colder months. Since fall decided to show up, we swapped out the screens for the windows after the paint dried and the backs of those windows are white/cream so it blended right in. 

In addition to taking on the full weekend project, I figured why not add a sub-project? So while the paint dried, I packed up my little helper and headed to Menards for some spray paint bringing the grand total for this whole front porch project to a whopping $6-7 bucks. The white paint on the wicker rocker was chipping and Chris had decided it was time for the metal star to be red. My dad informed me that some years down the road someone is going to buy that metal star and uncover 50 different paint colors. Come on, dad. This is only the fourth or fifth. I've lost count. The wicker rocker is a fairly recent addition and is pretty special to me. It was my Grandma's rocker and yellow tulips (she was the Pella tulip queen back in the day) remind me of her so I thought yellow was a fitting color. 

So yeah, that's the freshly painted front porch. My favorite place in this house.

And since the resident toddler has been trying to hijack this post the whole time I've been writing it, I thought I'd let her write you all a message...

fhjdvcccccccm/.

Have a good one. 

My Favorite Place...In This House

The front porch. My favorite place in this house. Great place to read. Play. Drink coffee. Escape football/toddlers. You know, relax.

The more time I spent out there, the more the multiple colors of brown trim with cream walls/siding annoyed me. 

Plus, the sill's brown paint was peeling and the resident toddler was becoming more and more interested in helping that process along.

I decided that this Saturday morning would be a good to put my paint-splattered sweatpants and tee back on - after a couple year hiatus - and get back on the home-renovation horse, so to speak. 

I busted out my birthday present from the first year we lived here (actually the first month), a Dewalt palm sander. And got to work. 

 

Better right?  

Then I scrubbed the entire porch (have I mentioned that it's like 20+feet x 6+ feet?) down with TSP-PF. No pics. Because, let's face it, scrubbing is boring. It did look a lot cleaner though. A LOT.

Next came the fun part. Priming the heck out of that "chocolate" (sure...) brown sill. Gripper + paintbrush + me = happy. In case I never said this before, a good paintbrush is worth the money. EVERY. TIME. I love Purdy brushes. LOVE. THEM. They just plain do a better job. And last forever if you take good care of them. Which you will. 

After I finished the sanding/scrubbing/priming, Chris, the entertainer of resident toddler, put said toddler down for a nap and grabbed a paintbrush to start the actual painting. The trade-off of toddler/parent worked out well. You see, Chris and I complement each other. According to him, he is a missile and I have to make sure he is pointed at the right target. According to me, I am a perfectionist and if I want to be picky about the prep work I have to do it myself or keep my mouth shut. Good thing I like prep work. 

The paint's almost the same color but you can see the difference on the wall under the front window. The window with the newly painted trim from a month ago. Color? Cooper Melon by Valspar. We had a gallon of exterior satin left over from the garage trim (yeah, yeah, some day there will be a garage post). This entire project cost us...zero dollars. Well, zero new dollars. I mean, we bought all the supplies at one point. With dollars.

So far so good. I'm blogging this as the paint dries and then we can put the quarter round back on and clean up. So a complete final picture will have to wait for now. 

A Nice Breeze and My New Favorite Place

The front porch. It's my new favorite room. Over Memorial Day weekend, Chris and Jack took on the task of putting in all fourteen screens and taking out the fourteen windows. Easy job? You might think so. But you'd be wrong.

 

When we closed on the house, the previous owner's son warned us to follow the numbers on the windows since they were not all the exact same size. But what he didn't say (or may not have realized) was that the numbers were painted over when the screens were last repainted, making it a really big...um, puzzle. 

Trying to find the perfect fit...

Three down, only eleven to go. Only eleven. 

Carolyn helping push out the glass windows to Chris. 

Eleven down, three to go. 

And, the screens are all in. Just before the rain started. 

Jack with his magic paint pen...re-numbering all the windows and screens to make sure the "puzzle" isn't quite as tricky at the end of the season. Smart, smart man.

We provided moral support and lunch, served on the now breezy porch.

I love the porch. Since the screens went in, I have spent hours reading mystery novels on the loveseat in the summer breeze. Now you know where to find me this summer. The front porch.

Improving Curb Appeal: One Plant at a Time

Good 'ole Home Depot...I'm sure they love us. Seeing as we've dropped a few coins there in the past few weeks on landscaping materials like flowers and bushes and pruners and a/c units and potting soil and....the list goes on. But words don't really do justice to the changes around our abode...that's why we take pictures. 

Chris planted Salvia (purple) and Tickseed (yellow) in the front yard. However, he realized he bought medium height Salvia and tall height Tickseed...so he had to do some re-planting since he had planted them backwards. Live and learn and then dig up some plants. 

 The Salvia is still taller than the Tickseed but it will grow to be about 12-24" taller than the Salvia, eventually. 

Chris planted a Barberry bush in front of the mailbox.

Then he had to move the pavers forward a few feet and re-purposed a few from the backyard patio area so the path would reach the driveway. 

Chris planted Creeping Thyme in between the paver stones. 

Watering his handiwork, making sure it packs down to stabilize. 

The man does nice work. To the far right of the front of the porch (under the Evergreen tree), Chris transplanted Hostas from the backyard to fill out the front "bed".

 

Deer me...

No, I did not use the wrong homophone (and yes, I did have to look up the correct grammatical term for deer/dear) when I titled this post. I truly was referring to deer, as in the four-legged animals that my family frequently hunts in the fall. 

Sunday, as I'm in my Master's tourney-induced semi-conscious state, Chris jumps out of his chair and shouts at me to come "quick" onto the front porch. Why? Because there were three deer in our driveway. Yup, in our urban neighborhood. Walking casually up the drive. I ran back inside for the camera and we snapped a few pics since they were in no hurry...

 By the time I got the camera, they'd made it across the street...

 Chris whistled and the buck turned around, apparently they are really scared of us...

 Just checking out the 'hood...

Headin' on down the street...

Right after the last picture was taken, two cars, one from each direction, came down the street and the deer just hung out in the middle of the street checking the cars out. The drivers were dumbfounded. You know, we get a pretty good show from the front porch every now and then.