New Gas Stove

Part of the fun of building your own (porch) or anything for that matter....is the fact that one can keep tweaking the space or improving upon it. Well, at least that's how I look at it...cuz our porch has been a ongoing project. First, it was just screen porch, than we wanted windows, than we insulated the floor...etc...etc....now the new change is warming the porch. We loved my ma's little electric stove we put in the porch. However, it proved to be not efficient enough heat source for those frigid winter temps. So, we decided to put in a real Gas Stove. Only we really like the look of my ma's little electric stove. So we got the a gas stove that looked similar in color and design. The only problem with the new stove is........we wanted to vent it directly out the back(no stack to the ceiling). So in order to do so and make code work........we had to move the window higher in order for the direct vent to be away from the window to follow code and work. I wasn't thrilled about moving the window up higher...cuz it would ruin the flow of the look of the porch. All the windows were level with each other and I liked that alot. However, After Doug got done with the window......it turned out real nice and it works better with the stove. So it wasn't as big of deal as I thought. Only a construction mess for a few days. I tell you it was worth it....we love the stove. It really is going to heat the porch nicely. We got a gas stove with little BTU's....so it wouldn't over power the porch with heat...it seems to be perfect. Now in the winter we can run the stove on thermostat and keep it maintain heat in there. Here is the stove ....on a nice cool night.....warm and cozy!

This stove the doors can open or you can close them............

We also put a major door on the door going to the outside. Before it was just a screen door. Which worked great for maintaining the heat in the porch too. So, now we almost got our screen porch ......working for year round use. LOL! I think it would have just been easier to make it into a 4 season from the start........but......ya know...we like doing things the hard way!

I know I've been absent from my blog alot......Aaron got sick with pneumonia. Which wouldn't have been so bad but we ended up in two different ER's cuz we didn't get the right diagnoses right away. That a long story and a frustrating one. It pretty much took up our whole month of March. Remember his truck we made for him in my last post.....yeah...that one. Well, that when Aaron got sick and he wasn't able to celebrate with his class transportation day. So we made the truck ......and he didn't even get to use it. Kinda a bummer for the little guy. Oh well! that the way it goes sometimes.

I'm gearing up for Easter....I will post some sneaks at Easter soon.

Christmas Porch Decorating Done

Finally done with the porch decorating for the holidays. It's probably all I will show of my home....decked out for Christmas. I shared last couple years of the rest of my house for Christmas. All that is left is the new porch. I already shared the tree but now it's fully decorated. Love this little bird ornament in gold tones. My theme was Berry's, Garland, nature with Golds, Silvers, glitter and Accented the tree with some stand out cream word ornament and snowflakes. Fitting for the porch right? You have to like the fact that we can decorate the porch for Christmas at all. Since it was made a screen porch and still is....technically. My Dh has done all he can to make this porch function in the winter months. Although, one draw back.......we really, really needed to put a permanent door on during the winter. Our door to the outdoors in the porch is only worthy of a SCREEN PORCH. SO it's icing up alot and frosty. Next year we will have to frame a door into the mix. As long as it's in the upper 20's we can enjoy the porch. when it gets below zero than it's not so much porch sitting days. LOL! Things my dh did do for winterizing.....the main thing we put in storm windows. Than we 3M insulated kits to cover the windows besides. The floor is only deck boards...so my dh insulted the floor underneath....and ran a heat vent thru. The floor is still chilly but works fine with slippers on. We are gettin the most out of our porch(LOL). I promise I will be done "obsessing" over my porch in the new year. LOL! It's new for us that's all. It's fun to have another space to decorate for the holidays.

I tried to reuse alot from my Fall time stash...so I reused this candle and just put a new candle ring around it to look more Christmasy. Remember my Stain glass Stars from last year? I finally got to hang them up in the porch this year. They make great sun catchers.

I found this birds nest with berries and garland at my mom's house. That was before I even had a theme picked out. I had to frebreeze it alot(my mom was a smoker) but it aired out. I wanted to put the birds nest ontop of mom's little stove. Thought that was a nice spot for all of mom's mementos. I put some fake LED candles to luminate the garland at night in the candle holders behind the birds nest. My JOY sign ornament on the tree....Aaron likes saying that word. He's learning alot of words and how to spell.

More sun catchers.................................and some candles. I purchased some more Yankee Candle from this years collection(evergreen shades, fitting for the nature theme) and I bought my mom these gingerbread Yankee Candles last year. So I kept them and use them with the rest of yankee candle. Muffin still LOVES the porch as her favorite sitting spot in the house now. She likes it when the sun is out and warming the porch.

We strung a set of lights up at the top of the garland.......LED Stars......but they were really throwing my theme off alot...I mean ALOT! Didn't look traditional at all. SO I bought some White, and Red plain lights and going to string them along the garland in hopes that will tone down the moving blinking lights. I would get rid of the LED lights but Aaron loves em now .....it's too late to backpedaled. SO I need to think of a way to make it all work. I will let you know how it looks?

Halloween Porch

Finally put up some Halloween lights in the porch. I had extra pumpkin lights...so all I did was buy some leaf strings at Micheal's and hang them up around our shelf. I found this cool Happy
Halloween sign at Target for 12.99. Super cool and affordable. I knew it would fit just right in the porch as a focal point. It's cool you can see it from in the house really well. I added some cool caldron's on both sides of the sign for dramatic effect. Aaron loved the porch lights. My Dh(Doug)help me put up the lights and wire them to our existing lights. So all we have to do now is flip the switch and the lights are on. Love that!

Here is the sign from Target....notice I made it my banner for my blog. Below are just more views of the porch with the Halloween lights.

I added some other Halloween decor too..........I got the boo pumpkins and White resin pumpkin from Pier 1 imports. The fun candles are from Pier 1 too.

Can't wait for Halloween. I hope every one's Halloween planning is going well. Sorry been absent from my blog for awhile. Our Internet is not working well lately and I've been so swamped and tired and sick most of the month. Hope I can keep up better soon. My family is getting together for Thanksgiving this year at my house. So I am excited about that and will be blogging about all the prep and events soon. Hope this month everyone gets out and finds some pretty fall colors to share.

Aaron is going to be a fireman AGAIN. He wanted to wear his same outfit from last year and I didn't complain. I hope it still fits him.

Happy Halloween Season Everyone!

1st July 4th in Porch

Happy late 4th of July!

Luckily, I had pre-planned my 4th weeks in advance and had all this picnic BBQ ready to go. When we got home from Mom's Funeral....we had a few days to prepare for 4th of July. I had bought plastic plates and glasses for the picnic instead of using paper(which is what we always used in the past). This was our first party in the porch. We usually eat in our gazebo Screen tent and sweat up a storm. Not this year.....we ate in the porch. Probably will make that our tradition now. I removed all the furniture and we set up the porch for eating. I used Doug's Grandma's Table we inherited.............and decorated it with 4th of July fun stuff. I got the plates from Lands End(Sears). I bought green gingham plates(one blue one above) and blue damask dessert plates. I got the drinking cups from Kohl's. I than got some wine goblets from CUB FOODS. Every store had big discount on these plastic type dinnerware. It was really affordable and fun. I did splurge on the green Colander and Pail from Pottery Barn. They were having a sale on their outdoor entertaining too...........and just happen to have the green left. I used the colander for Fruit for each place setting and the Pail for every one's silverware and napkins. I also used the Lands End(Sears) cloth napkins for place mats and cornered them on the table. They had that cute scallop edging on them and were too cute to use for napkins. They were big enough to use for place mats. So I used a basic White table cloth and set the napkins ontop the cloth. FYI: pottery barn was completely out of their colanders and pails after I purchased, BUT to my dismay TARGET had similar mini colanders for way way cheaper than Pottery Barn. I would have brought mine back to PB and got the Target ones and saved money BUT it was a FINAL sale on PB discounted items. Bummer! Target didn't have green but they had red, white and blue(the blue was light blue color). They were in their dollar item bins and they were even pretty picked over but run to the store....their could be some left???

I chose to use Blue and Green color scheme(instead of red white blue). That way I could bring in some Green since the porch is green. I added the flags and stars to add the Patriotic colors into the scheme.

I decided to put a flag in every pail. My table was loaded...................ha! Not to worry tho as I set up a buffet style table for the eats(food).

This was before the food was out: we had chips, Bob's famous tuna salad, veggie tray,baked beans, lemonade and ice cubes. I bought a cute bucket from Kohl's that you put ice cubes in and scoop the ice out with a metal scoop. That worked really cool, otherwise we would just grab what we had in the cooler. This was much easier and convenient. I also bought the veggie tray from Kohl's too. They had such good deals on their outdoor patio stuff. The blue asian candle urns are from Target(also a place that had mucho sales). The condiment tray was purchased from Target too. I really was able to mix and match alot of things from different stores.
Here it is loaded with food:

Closeup:
I really liked these little stars I found at Target:
I bought a two pack and strung them along the buffet table. I found the outdoor/indoor table cloth at Kohl's for dirt cheap. I like these table linens too/they don't wrinkle at all!!!

Doug was the grill master...he set up a little area on the unfinished deck. He did a great job on the grilling. We had steaks, burgers and corn on the Cobb.

I was the hostess.........I was loving this new porch eating set up.......so close to the kitchen and easy access to all the food.

I think I looked patriotic with my red white and blue outfit(bought at JcPenney, part of the American Living Brand).

I also set up my bistro table in the house next to the porch door/for extra table space and we used this for the cake.
It was Sylvia's (a friend of the family)birthday. celebration too.

My Sister Francine was in town to visit too and celebrated the 4th with us. She looks real patriotic too.

Someone else was patriotic too:

Aaron did he's traditional thing on the 4th.......hang out in his swimming pool. Maybe someday will have a in ground pool(Wink, Wink)!

This year we bought a fire pit and chairs for the 4th. We were going to buy them anyway for our patio we haven't made yet. Soon we should have a pavered patio to put them onto permanently. For now we just threw them out on the lawn and enjoyed. We really enjoyed the fire pit/as it less messy then having the one in the ground. The fire is above you so it doesn't smoke you out so much/as the ground one did.

Muffin and Dave enjoying the porch too!

Finished Porch(with furniture)

Here is the porch with furniture.........1st pix without pillows and next with pillows and things on shelf. I still have alot to get for my shelf. Maybe find some vintage looking signs? For now I just put my fox weather vane up there and a couple lanterns.

Pix of the seating grouping

Close-ups:

Dining Bistro Table(I haven't gotten my tablecloth yet but had this one in my table linen collection. It's a little too dark green. I haven't found chair pads either yet.

Bench Swing(I think we might have made this swing too high but it can be adjusted)

Couch(My Dh hates when I put so many pillows on the couch...he thinks he has no place to sit...LOL!) I plan to bring back some of the pillows. I haven't decided which ones yet. So I am trying them out first. No worries, I still have the tags and I kept good care of them.

Black Rocking Chair(note to self.....keep chair away from Vinyl baseboards...will make a horrid black mark on the trim work...learn this the hard way). Otherwise, this chair works good in this spot.
Little Green Shelf(Was going to put this by the rocking chair but the area was getting overloaded....so it fit in this nook by the doors. Can move it around it needed!)

The Rug(wish I would have unwound it from packaging...as it was all bumpy when we put it down on the floor.....hopefully it will straighten out soon)!

The shelf:
Here a couple pix of what the shelf is good for.....displaying fun items or Mood Lighting at night. It was hard to get a good pix of the lighting(rope) but it really adds alot in the evening. Makes the whole ceiling glow. Oh, and I can't wait to look for fun things for that shelf. May take while to fill it with things.

Look, I think someone is peaking over the bench swing? Aaron fav. new place(the swing)! Speaking of:

Aaron's favorite place(he like swinging that swing, he fits nicely on the bench).


Muffin's Favorite Porch Spot: The couch(of course)!

First picnic in finished porch. Aaron really likes picnics! The best part......NO BUGS!


Other uses for the Bistro Table(this is how we ended the night). More mood lighting with lanterns.



All we have left is to finish the deck and our porch project will be completed(well, and landscape). I will post more pixs when our decking gets done of the outside of our porch and deck.