Porch Redo

Another area I wanted to spruce up before my sister and her family's arrival was the back porch. They love being in the fresh air and since it's been getting milder here, I thought it'd be nice to have an area where we could enjoy beverages and some snacks:


Previously, we had been using the back porch just as a convenient place to bring out the trash and put out recyclables.


Though I spent about $35 investing in the artificial grass rug, a few cans of spray paint, and a couple of Dollar Store LED-lit paper lanterns, I really wanted to use what I had on hand. I used folding chairs and an old folding table we had as well as icicle lights.


I attempted to spruce up the folding table with some color. I have dubbed this table "The Learning Experience". I had tried different spray paints (e.g., one for plastic since there is a laminate on the table) and realized that some reacted unevenly with each other and the surface. Also, I learned a couple of lessons the hard way about using hand-made stencils. Anyhoo, it'll do for now:


Also the girl had this faded blue paper lamp that I spray painted in Chrome to make it pop against the paper lanterns:


It all came together quickly and fairly painlessly and I was pleased with the simple redo. To summarize, here is Before:


Here is After:


And here is After-Dark:


I stuffed some icicles inside the chrome star paper lamp. And since the green paper lanterns' LED lights didn't work, I stuffed a few icicles inside of one as well. Who would have thought there would be such shoddy workmanship from the Dollar Store?


The girl liked it a lot--she said she looks forward to hanging out there with food and friends.


Hope my sister's family enjoys it!