Our Farmhouse Porch in the Summer

 

 During the seventies, the weekly TV show "The Waltons" was a hit at our house.  I loved their big family, their white farmhouse in the mountains, and especially their huge front porch.  I remember Grandma shelling peas while sitting on the porch rocker, Mary Ellen complaining about her life while lounging on the porch swing, and Mama greeting everyone with a smile on her front porch as she welcomed them in.  I dreamed of having their life...but maybe with a bit more money and some nicer clothes.  

I had a vision for our own front porch many years ago when I got our large porch swing as a Mother's Day gift, which was much more enjoyable than the clothesline I received for that same holiday a couple of years earlier.

 

The vision continued as I received my first porch rocker for another Mother's Day gift and had the porch floor replaced in 2014.  Then in 2015 we finally repainted it, and this year I woke up on Mother's Day to a second porch rocker so that I now have the symmetry my OCD self yearned for.

 

After acquiring the porch rockers from Cracker Barrel, the final part of my dream involved sheer white curtains.  This proved to be a more challenging task than I ever imagined because there are iron poles connected to either ends of our porch.  Those poles can't be removed, and their height and width aren't your typical window size.

 

I figured I could either buy shower curtains or long drapes with grommets.  That way I could attach them with shower hooks.  It turned out that none of the shower curtains were long enough, and I would have to purchase at least three window panels for each side.  I didn't want to spend a lot of money since these would be outside in the elements all summer.  I thought it would be easy to find what I was looking for.  I was wrong.  I went to TJ Maxx, Home Goods, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, but I couldn't find what I wanted.  Everything was either too thick or too expensive or not the right size or there weren't enough in stock or not grommet style.  So I finally patronized the one story that everyone else I know frequents but that I avoid at all costs: Walmart.  And it was there that I found the exact sheer panels I was looking for with the grommet openings for only $7/panel.  And as luck would have it, they had exactly six of them.  Then my daughter and I found these cute shower hooks that we thought would look perfect to hang them, so we bought three packages of them too for $8/package.

I was so excited to get home and hang these curtains on these shower hooks that were rust-proof and guaranteed to not slip out of the shower curtains.  What was I thinking?!  These work perfectly with shower curtains that have slits for openings, but they are obviously not made to hold grommet-style curtains.  This was definitely one of my most daft moments.  I ran upstairs to our bathroom and tore down our shower curtain so I could use the cheap, round, clear plastic hooks.  Then I searched the bathroom closet because I knew I had extra hooks in there.  Unfortunately, they were the same style as the ones I just bought, only very corroded.  So I hurried up to the cabin and took down that shower curtain as well.  I still needed another twelve round curtain hooks.  I turned around and there on the shelf was another package of mismatched shower curtain hooks...but only nine of them.  I brought them all down to the house and hung the curtains with what I had, dreading to go back to Walmart to buy yet another package of these stupid hooks.  You can't just get them individually; it's a package of twelve or none at all.

 

So with the aid of my youngest daughter (who had Cowboy Day at school that morning), we hung the curtains and did a quick photo shoot with three grommets not attached to the iron pole.  And the hooks were of all different styles and colors.

 

That evening I had to take our son and his friend to a middle school dance, so after dropping them off, I headed back to Walmart.  I had a great time because I had my best friend along, and we chatted and chatted, not really paying attention to anything around us.  We just enjoyed some girl time out away from most of our children (my teen daughter tagged along in hopes of a trip to the mall.)  I went through the self-checkout line and bought the $1.26 package of clear, round, plastic curtain hooks, and shoved the receipt in my purse as I eyed the tiki torches near the exit and continued talking with my friend.  It was a fun night for all of us, but when I got home and looked for the shower hooks to finish hanging my curtains, I couldn't find them anywhere.  And I realized that I left them at the checkout in Walmart while I was busy conversing with my friend.

 

So the next day I went to Ollie's and bought the same hooks for 

$.95 and kicked myself for not shopping there for them to begin with.

 

The curtains were hung, and my vision was complete.  However, I hadn't given much thought to how I would keep them in place.  The winds just whip them around everywhere.  My friend told me her aunt sewed rocks into the bottoms of her porch curtains.  I placed some of our larger river stones in the bottom pockets of these sheer drapes, but all that did was create noise as they scraped and rolled across the porch floor.  Then when it got super windy, they flew up and around, and those river stones went flying.  My white sheer curtains became weapons directed at anyone out there on the porch.  So I've given up and just allow them to float and wave and fly wherever the wind takes them.  Porch sitters just have to get used to the curtains brushing over their shoulders or their heads as they sit and read and drink their coffee or G & T's.

 

A few finishing touches were added.  Two hanging baskets arrived from my children as additional Mother's Day gifts this year.

 

And when I couldn't decide what to place in the empty space next to the front door, I decided to use the picnic basket we got as a wedding gift and my husband's work boots that are a bit scruffy but not currently coated in manure.  The food was just for the photo shoot, of course; most of the time it's filled with one of our annoying cats who end up using my porch displays every season for their beds.

 

Now my vision is complete for the summer where our front porch is concerned.  This is where I chose to celebrate my 48th birthday this past week as I relaxed in a sundress with a glass of Chardonnay in the early evening.  I suppose this is my version of being on the Waltons' porch in the Appalachians, only with wine instead of the Baldwin sisters' "recipe."

Decorating our Farmhouse Porch for Christmas (with Stuff from the Attic)

 

Most of our house is decorated with the "primitive preppy" Christmas decor from last year, but I wanted to do something different with the front porch.  Not having any electrical outlets on the outside of our house limits what I can do, so there are no lights, unfortunately.  For the most part, I found things in our attic and basement, some of them belonging to my husband when he was a child.

 

First of all, to all my readers who are PSU fans, don't be alarmed...this blanket was given to us and rests on our porch swing to snuggle under on cold evenings.  Since it's red, I left it on the swing for the Christmas season.  The small Christmas Blessings pillow was also given to us, but the plaid pillows were found for $5 at Target.  We don't sit out there much in the winter, but it looks inviting anyway, and it's become the favorite napping spot for our cats.

 

I took last year's wreath with the plaid bow and hung it from the rocking chair instead of the door.

 

I picked up the pine swag with another plaid bow at the Christmas tree farm the day after Thanksgiving.  To the right, the black ice skates and skis were my husband's, and I found them after rummaging through the cluttered attic and very rustic basement.

 

A friend of mine painted the snowman hanging on the wall, but the hanger fell off it years ago.  I attached some rustic ribbon and after more than a decade of sitting in a box in the attic, it's now out on display once again.  I purchased the small live Christmas tree at Weis this year and found unused Peanuts Gallery ornaments that I bought and never used years ago.  For now this is our little Charlie Brown Christmas tree, but the plan is to plant it in the ground when Christmas is over.  Ollie, the cat (who is lapping up the water dripping from the tree) has been with us since 2012 when the kiddos and I came back from a short vacation to discover their dad had taken in two more stray kittens.

 

This entrance is the one most used and comes straight into our busy farmhouse kitchen.

 

This chalkboard has been around for decades.  I previously used it when I was homeschooling preschoolers.  Now it's become my fun chalkboard art display that changes with the seasons and holidays.  I wish I could say I come up with these designs on my own, but most of the time I copy and adapt them from Pinterest.

 The only new items purchased for our porch this year were the swag above the door, the miniature potted tree, and the two pillows on the swing.  That came to a mere $39 and it was all purchased at places I frequent anyway: Target, Weis, and a local tree farm. 

Now I just need to finish my Christmas shopping.  Too bad I can't do all of that from our attic and basement.  I'm afraid "regifting" dusty items from the storage areas of our farmhouse wouldn't go over well with our children. 

Fall Porch Makeover

We finally completed a summer-turned-fall project: giving our porches makeovers.  This farmhouse has three covered porches, and we've only really worked on two of them, but I am so excited to finally have most of this project done.

Our front porch actually needed some work when we bought it nine years ago.  A few of the floor boards were starting to rot, and it needed new paint.  Through the years, this just got worse, and we also battled mildew on the white wooden ceiling repeatedly.  Last summer, we finally hired a carpenter to replace some of the floor boards and all of the columns, but before we knew it, it was fall and we had not gotten around to repainting.

After bleaching and treating the mildewed ceiling, my husband repainted it and the columns white, and then he and our teenage son set to work painting several coats of Benjamin Moore custom-mixed paint on the floor.  Our biggest challenge was keeping our four cats off the wet paint.

Part of this job entailed removing pesky hornets' nests that were constructed at overhangs all around our roofs.  There were also birds' nests in the eaves and vines that had attached themselves up under the siding.  There are so many living things that like to live and grow here with us.  Sometime I'll have to tell you about the geese in our pool, the snake in our attic, and the bat in my swimsuit.

Once the hard work was done, I got to come in and do the fun part: decorate.  I had a difficult time  deciding which colors of mums to buy.  I love the purple ones, but I wasn't sure they would match everything else on the front porch.  I may go back and purchase more.  Most of our pumpkins will end up being carved into jack-o-lanterns, but not until closer to Halloween or they will be filled with fruit flies and mold.

I ordered this hand-painted monogrammed sign from Southside Signs & Such and have it hanging next to our front door.  They will custom design and paint just about anything you have in mind.

My husband agreed to bring down a haybale from the barn loft as long as the goats and sheep will get it once fall is over.  We hoard hay because there have been some long winters where hay was hard to find by late February or March.  The past two winters we still had snow on the ground until April.  I picked up the welcome mat from Target, and all the pumpkins, mums, and Indian corn from Weis supermarket.  I would have preferred picking our own pumpkins at a local pumpkin patch, but it rained here most of the week. The wreath is very old and will probably be replaced next year.  

I put the wooden folding chairs away, but the rocker and swing stay out on the porch year-round.  It's always good to have a place outside to sip some coffee in the morning and some wine or hard cider in the early evening.

Now I need some help with the color of the front door.  Both the screen door and main door are currently a dark forest green.  That went well with the old porch color of a dull slate gray, but this new paint color is much more blue.  My in-laws and I have debated over canary yellow, dark red, or a slightly gray khaki, if you can picture that.  I can't make up my mind.  

What color would you recommend?