Porch redo begins

For the past two years my husband and I have been overwhelmed with medical mayhem. As a result, some things have fallen by the wayside. Namely, the exterior of our home and the gardens are in need of some serious work. For the sake of sanity, we have focused our energies on feeling better, making accommodations for necessary changes, and using what little extra energy we have on just keeping the interior of our home in working and livable condition. Certainly, the pandemic lock down has added to the problem but as we become vaccinated, areas begin opening, and some things get under control, we are beginning new projects and catching up on things we've set aside. One of those projects are the porches.  Our porches need painting! Sometimes inspiration is needed before you can really get into the mindset to change things. But first comes the cleaning, the de-mossing, de-algae, the de-weeding. 

On the porches we have mats, chairs, planters, etc.

As Spring sprung, I began with the plants. Repotting, dividing, trimming. So many things to do. 

I rehung the spring wreath on the front door.

I bought a new welcome mat as the other had come apart after two years of wear and weather.

I polished the unwelcome sign.

In the words of my daughter who recently visited, I also put out the not-so-subtle signals indicating A witch lives here.

I also cleaned off the iron planters and resprayed those in a matte black.

With the gardens overgrown, the solar lights had broken and come apart. I reused some and made little porch lights using glass containers, stones, and whatever else I found.

 

The porch's condition is obviously bad and that's after a scrubbing. With all the rain and pollen, I'll need to clean several more times and scrub for quite a while. The repainting won't come until the heat sets in and the rain goes away for a while.