Getting there...

Front Porch Progress Report:

- The "walls" have been painted. They're hardly walls, though. There are only 2 of them and they only come up to waist height.
- about 80% of the trim is painted
- The 20 ft. wall has had all the screen removed and the wood that was behind it has been painted. 
- The ceiling has been scraped and sanded
- A new screen door has been ordered and is supposed to arrive at Lowe's on August 8th (which is a Sunday...so we'll see).
- A ceiling color has been chosen and purchased, I'm going to try the blue.
- Pillow fabric and pillow forms are sitting in the dining room ready for sewing
- I got a bench to put along the wall by the front door at Target, on sale! 

Still to do:
- Paint remainder of trim
- Paint the ceiling
- Remove about 10 more feet of screen and paint the wood behind it
- Replace the screen we took down and reapply the trim that was on top of it.
- Pick up and hang new screen door
- Hang decorative "bird hooks"
- Buy some sweet potato vine, plant it and hang pots from bird hooks
- Make pillows 
- Talk Adam into replacing the light fixture, then purchase light fixture, then install light fixture
- Paint the blue ceramic stool

I was all excited about the progress made so far, and now that I've written this list I feel really behind. The weather is supposed to be nice for the rest of this week though, so hopefully I'll get the rest of the painting done, the pillows made and the sweet potato vine planted.

I hope to have progress pictures with the next post. I don't want to reveal too much just yet! This is a fairly small make over, and of course I want to suck as many posts out of it as possible.

I'll show you what it looked like before though.

Note to self: Remove tags from the back of the chairs...

I got the furniture last year on sale at Home Depot (Originally at $400 3 piece set, marked down to $200. I managed to get them to throw in 2 extra chairs for $100...so, 5 piece set, $300). The rug was $25 at a Pier One that was going out of business, and the blue stool was $20 at Big Lots and I'm going to paint it...something. I'm thinking something punchy and fun, but we'll see.

You can see my paint samples on the wall, I went with the more muted green. All the trim will be Ultra White. Nothing is happening to the stone walls.

I've got a mixture of green and terra cotta fabrics to make pillows. The fireplace doors that have sat out there since January were taken away by a lucky Freecycler (I got two Craigslist offers for them a few days later...after the listing had been up for a MONTH). I bought a bench at Target on sale that is sitting against the wall where the fireplace doors are in this picture.

I'm hoping to replace this light fixture:

With something a little more like this:

Here's the kicker. 3 weeks until I go back to work...I want to get this porch done before then.

Will I make it? Stay tuned.