before and after: our porch

This house has many quirky and endearing factors. When we first looked at it, we saw the potential in the space. As renters, we aren't going to fix up much, but when we first moved in we attacked what we could with the energy of the young and naive.

We're pretty much done attacking things and have resorted to hiding the piles in closets.

But, just last week we made major strides on one little area, the porch.

This is how it looked when we moved in:

Pretty bleak.

The brick was so stained that Matt decided to go after it with a power washer. He power washed every day after work for hours, and after a couple weeks, he had made a big difference on the appearance.

We collected some items that were left at the house, added our garage-sale umbrella, and this is how it looked outside for a while:

Not very inviting!

When we had our 4th of July party I decided that red, white, and blue would look nice out there and had my heart set on red-and-white striped cushions. After searching the stores for two months without finding any, my mom stepped in to save the day and got them for my birthday.

But still, the area needed a little punch . . .

We found this chair on the side of the road . . .

Yikes.

But I figured an afternoon of scrubbing it down and a can or two of spray paint would spice it up a bit.

My helper, showing off Matt's power washing:

Do you know how much Moose sheds in the summer? It's ridiculous.

So here's how it looks these days . . .

Striped cushions!

Red chair!

Sweet Moosey! And the rustic decorations sent to me from Wisconsin by my dear sweet Johanna!

I also painted the table legs to clean it up a bit.

Now imagine if that planter actually had flowers in it . . . there's always something else to do!