C'est la finis!

Here's the close up photo for those of you wanting to participate in the contest mentioned near the end of this post. Make sure you leave your name. The first one to identify them all just might get a little kitsch from me after all. (Click on the picture to make it larger.)

So we've literally had rain every single day for a week. That's played major havoc with my painting schedule. I managed to get the rest of the painting on the inside of the porch done, but all the furniture and accessories that I still needed to paint had to be done in the backyard with no shelter from the rain. So I painted when I could and hoped the paint would dry before the next storm. *sigh*

But my persistence paid off, I finally got everything painted, put back on the porch, hung, planted, etc. I can't tell you how much joy I feel every time I step out onto my newly redone porch. I feel this operatic note come bursting forth from my chest, like "LAAAAAAAA," then the joy rushes forward. I know, I'm weird. So in this picture, the table is obviously missing from between the four chairs. I have a picture of it complete, but the sun was setting by the time the table dried and I could put it back on the porch and I wanted you to get a good idea of the colors on the porch, so I included this shot that was taken earlier in the morning. Note the window hanging on the left. I always meant to do an individual post on that, but it's taken me 3 years to finish that little project so I never got around to doing the post on it. It was my first attempt at a stained glass window effect. It's okay. I'll keep practicing. For those of you who click on the picture to enlarge it to see what those objects are at the top of the porch. Each time we travel somewhere, M and I pick up a kitsch souvenir to decorate our porch. I could tell you what each one is and where it came from, but I have a better idea. Let's make this a contest. Let's see who can name each object and where it came from. I'd offer to send you a prize of some other piece of kitsch I have around the house, but one woman's kitsch is another person's clutter.

So note the mint green ceiling, the gorgeous blue floor, and the pistachio green Adirondack chair and foot rest. I also have various shade plants in pots scattered around the porch. After four years of investing in gorgeous hanging pots of draping flowers to decorate the porch and watching as they died out rather quickly due to lack of sunshine, I finally realized I should put shade loving house plants out there instead. Oh, I'm not giving up on flowers on the front porch. A neighbor told me last night about a particular type of flower that loves shade and the local nursery that carries hanging pots of those flowers. I'll go in search of them tomorrow.

So this chair, it has a story of its own you know. I originally purchased this and a large number of matching chairs in New Hampshire back in 2000. A few got broken when too many teenagers tried piling on top of each other in them, but the four that survived traveled with us to Maryland when we moved. In their original incarnation they were a dark, hunter green - very conservative and functional. For the past few years, each time we drive to the beach, I see Adirondack chairs in all sorts of beachy bright colors and pastels. Of course they want a small fortune for them. I've been lusting after those bright colors for years. Lust no more. I discovered the spray paint isle at my local store and have given my dark green chairs new life. It began with this chair. I was so pleased with the color, so were the neighbors, that I went really crazy with the other chairs on the back deck. Pictures of them are coming up.

I decided "color" was the name of the game for the front porch. So each potted plant that I put out there also got a new coat of paint on the pot. I turned my terra cotta, black, and white pots to bright colors. Two of the big ones are purple and on the front porch.





Here's a shot of both of the big purple pots. There are Day Lillies in the farthest one and I can't remember the name of the plant in the first one. I'm horrible with names of plants.





I didn't paint these little pots yet, but I did do a blast of fire engine red on the plant holder.




Speaking of red, my tarnished, copper/gold sorta mailbox got a fresh coating of red as well. Somebody a few blocks away has a red Swedish mailbox that I'd seen in a mail order catalog. I can't afford to buy one of those, but I can afford a couple bucks for a can of red spray paint. I think it turned out nicely. *giggle*

Here's a shot of the finished table back on the porch, but it was sunset and not conducive to good picture taking, but note the rug under the table.


I got an area sized rug to go under the table and chairs and I got a wide runner to span the distance between the front door and the screen door. I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE these rugs. The pattern and the colors are of course very appealing to me, but the cool thing about these rugs are that they are outdoor rugs made from recycled plastic bottles. So I just hose them off and they're clean. The colors are also supposed to be fairly fade proof because they're not stamped a color on top, each fiber strand of plastic is like yarn and that particular color all the way through. Cool huh?

Here's a shelf I already had and above that is a welcome sign that was all faded from it's original sage green, brown, orange and yellow. What do you think of its color make-over?










On each end of the porch I have these candle holders. They're a little Morroccan I suppose, but I like them. They have little tea candles in their glass cups in the center.

Now as promised, here are the other chairs on the back deck that I also re-painted. Here's a lovely little lavender number sitting by the back door.









Here's a seating arrangement with another pistachio green and bright yellow. I also painted a number of pots on the back deck as well. So with all that painting, house cleaning and repairs, plus lots of work, I've been very busy. I'm also beginning to realize I'm either getting too old for all this activity or I'm just out of shape, okay, maybe a little of both.

Note to Marvia: Here's the link to the bathroom post you asked about: New Bathroom