Since I work in a church, we don't close the office for lunch. We either pick up take outs or we bring our lunch and we all sit around in a big (or small) circle and eat together and chat. We stop and work when necessary.
While we were eating today, Suzanne said, "how about if we all go out to eat one night and then come over to your house for a tour!" I said, "come on over!" Jessica said that we could have drinks on the veranda. We could certainly do that because our house has lots of porches! Come on and I'll show you!
We have a front porch that wraps around one side. The table is pushed up against the wall right now but we slide it out when we are eating around it. One night last summer, after I went to sleep, Mark went online and ordered all this front porch furniture! He had always wanted teak outdoor furniture and he now owns some. There is a nice breeze that blows through most times and we are going to have a ceiling fan installed about the table (hopefully soon!). Lanterns are from target - they were some other color originally and I painted them red. Chair cushions are from At Home.
This is the front porch "proper." When no one is eating at the table, we use the arm chairs that belong to the table on this part of the porch. Mark also ordered the little teak table to go between these chairs. It is kind of a "thing" in our neighborhood to have lamps on all of the porches. We've been in our house over a year and finally got smart enough a few weeks ago to put all the outside lamps on timers!! I made the wreath to use for Amy Patterson's baby shower. I decided that I liked the blue and green combo so I found a great lamp and some throw pillows at At Home.
We also have two hibiscus plants and two ferns on the porch (not pictured).
This is our screened in porch that is on the side of the house. This porch will connect to our soon to be completed courtyard. They should finish building the house next door soon and after that, we can have our courtyard gates installed and some landscaping done. This porch is also the walkway between the garage and the house. We picked out the tile at Southeastern Salvage and had it installed both inside the porch and on the patio portion outside. Our son, Glenn, made the bar for me for Christmas. I've recently done some decorating on it. Too bad I don't have the picture with the new stuff on top! These wicker rockers came from Garden Ridge (now At Home). The wooden rocker is the rocker that Mark had in his apartment back in Gadsden - right out of college. I used that rocking chair to rock my babies!! It was a natural color and I spray painted it to match the others. There is a little wicker table between the wooden rocker and the wicker rocker. It used to be white and is actually a little two drawer chest. It was a part of some kitchen furniture that we used to have. I spray painted it to match also. If you look closely, you can see some items on the shelf of the bar. There is a cool reclaimed wooden box that Mark picked up at Southeastern Salvage (can you see a shopping theme??). There is also one of those giant margarita glasses that I bought to serve salsa in (not what you were thinking!!) and it is full of Mark's beer caps. He gets a beer out of the fridge in the garage; walks by the bar and pops the top off on the opener mounted on the front; throws the cap in the bowl!
We want to have a couple of ceiling fans installed on this porch. We need a breeze! I love to sit out here in the morning. I've been known to slip out there even in my jammies.
At the bottom of the picture, you see the tail of our sweet kitty!
This is our upstairs porch. You enter this porch from our loft living space.
These four chairs are from pottery barn and they are really comfortable. We have a great story about these chairs. If we are ever with you and you haven't heard it . . .we need to tell you. I think it would lose something in typing it.
You can't tell but the little tables between the chairs are wooden fish. They are like these at Amazon. We repurposed the little lamp (far table) from one of the kid's rooms, I think! The white fish plate on the stand was a gift at some point from a friend and it just works on the porch!
We want to have two ceiling fans installed on this porch, too.
I have a big "E" on the door and it is painted in the blue and green colors like the downstairs porch. This porch is also on the front of the house so the two porches need to sort of match. I would like to do some more decorating on all of the porches but can only do a little at a time!! I think it would be fun to have some outdoor rugs for color and maybe a few pictures - especially on the screened in porch.
Did you notice our shutters? They are actually working shutters so if we ever had a big enough storm, we could close them if we needed to do so!
We have porches and chairs galore and would love for you to come visit and sit a spell. We can fix a glass of sweet tea for you or something stronger! We can talk long into the night and swat away the mosquitoes. We can solve all the problems of the world . . .sitting on the porch!
No comments:
Post a Comment