I just can’t keep still. Even during the height of Covid, I needed to keep working on something, to improve our home. The only place that is truly separate from the rest of the house is the porch, so that’s what we focused on!
The porch has always been lovely, but it just wasn’t my style. I think it could be best described as “1980’s style”. Very… pastel pink. I wanted something light, bright, and inviting for a hot summer day or night. In retrospect, I wish I had looked more for the tile. I limited myself to online options since we didn’t want to go into a store, but I think we could have found something a bit more casual if we had looked more. Oh well!
The first thing I did was to remove the original pickling from the wood on the ceiling using Stripease. This is really disgusting, dangerous stuff so I used a full body suit and respirator. I looked cool. It was back-breaking work, though, so Rich was kind enough to apply the polyurethane after that. I’m really pleased with how the ceiling came out, although I’m still wondering what to do with those beams… The red stain is really not my style.
Then we primed, with stinky, oil primer to hide the knots in the wood. After that we painted… twice. I thought I wanted something a bit beige, but White Dove by BM was just too yellow. So we went with Chantilly Lace. After the tile was replaced by Jose Tile Installers (never going back to doing it ourselves) the basic renovation was done!
I wanted a small living area to listen to baseball games in the summer. We dragged my parents’ old glide out of my brother’s shed, and then spent a fortune having custom cushions made for it. I console myself by saying, “it would have been hard to find small enough furniture these days!”
I also wanted a new dining table or to refinish the existing, but it wasn’t in the budget. Instead, I bought a sisal rug from West Elm (color: mountain ash) to warm up the space. The finishing touches were a few accessories for the living space: this table, this, this and this pillow, and a throw (similar here).
I’m still working on the lighting in this room. It’s pretty dim at night, and feels a bit sterile. We’re considering string lights, but I’m concerned I’ll get sick of them. Maybe some curtains to soften things up? Fortunately, there’s no rush!
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