#thethriftedporch

 I had the fabulous opportunity to join 4 friends from Instagram for a fun, thrifting based, porch refresh this Spring. It was all about creativity over cash and you know I love that. 

And you know I love my porch so it was a win-win for me. 

Be sure to check out everyone else's fabulous porch refreshes:

@cjswank_newyork    @paigekontrafouris       @speakingofdiy        @cgumin

The "reveals" were on Instagram but I wanted to share a few more details about my porch and it's thrifted history.

Our screened in porch is big but it didn't start that way. It began as a small, about 10 x 10, "builder deck" and we actually thrifted the rest! Not quite all of it but most of it. My husband called one day from a construction site and said they were moving the office trailer and it had two big decks on front at the doors. It was the exact materials our existing deck was made of and did I want him to bring them home and add on to the deck? Umm, yes! And the rest, as they say, is history. We just kept doing that and eventually the southern mosquitoes motivated us to screen it in as well. We have put a lot of hard work, sweat and a few tired muscles into creating this porch!

It has evolved through the years and didn't happen overnight. We added on with salvaged materials from building sites for years and almost everything on the porch - furniture, planters, accessories - has been thrifted over time as well. 

And when something wore out we went thrifting again to replace it!

Since we have thrifted a majority of the furnishings, there was no worrying about the huge amount of wear and tear that our porch has taken over the last 20+ years. We have hosted literally hundreds of people on our porch - 200 people in our porch and yard for Mollie's HS graduation, a band and a large group as a fundraiser for a school we were building in Haiti, entire HS track and XC teams and of course family and friends in much smaller numbers. Last year it was just us but it was a blessing to our family every day. And it is, by far, Cooper's favorite place to be. 

Here is a post to show you what our porch looked like last Summer after I finished repainting our floor. (It's a project for sure!)

 I made some changes early this Spring and then a few more for our #thethriftedporch refresh.

Again, our porch is large, but I urge you to thrift some comfy seating and create an outdoor space to enjoy. We use our porch so much and I'm thrilled when people say our porch has inspired them to create an outdoor space to enjoy. There's nothing like fresh air to make the day better.

So here is what #thethriftedporch looks like this Summer.

We had a limit of $200.00 for this refresh. I'm going to count the fabric I ordered right before this came about because it has been the biggest expense this year and has done a lot to pull the separate pieces of furniture together. 

(The new green outdoor fabric from Shopfabric.com. The big vintage couch in the background!)

Since I'm working with what I have and it's accumulated over time, there needed to be an element to make it all more cohesive. I ordered $80.00 worth of outdoor fabric in a deep green to recover quite a few cushions on the porch and to coordinate with our huuuuge vintage bamboo couch. The big couch is covered in a high quality laminated fabric and is in excellent condition. It's maybe not what I would choose but this couch is so tough and wet dog proof that I can't complain. (Let's face it if I won the lottery it would all be covered in white Sunbrella fabric!!)

 We actually saw this couch on an episode of Magnum P.I. - the original one! That's vintage!!

This green fabric also ties in with all of our painted wicker and bamboo. I use the darkest gloss green spray paint I can find to mimic my beloved Charleston Green.  

Other than moving some accessories around and covering the cushions the only major thing I did for this refresh was to paint a buffalo or gingham check rug between the glider and the swinging bed on the opposite side of the porch. 

I used the ochre paint from last Summer's One Room Challenge where I gave the Powder Room a refresh. It is Sherwin Williams Anjou Pear. It took a couple of hours and the blue painter's tape and paint I had on hand. 

 If you want to paint a floor - inside or out - I'll be posting my how to's on the blog tomorrow.

The porch was actually one of my One Room Challenges a few years ago. You can see how it has changed since then here.

I wintered over our big ferns in our "greenhouse/coldframe" experiment so I didn't even need to buy ferns this Spring!

And P.S. this isn't the first time this porch had a painted rug! 

Look at cute, little Mollie on our porch in 1996!

Also note the dark green wicker chaise, green porch floor, fountain on the porch and  a handpainted gingham rug! When I like something , I like it!!

This was before we screened in the porch and there are vintage milk glass compotes on the porch rail that I used as votive holders :)  This vintage thing is not a new gig for me!!

I made a few changes to our bar cart area too. First, I had to clean off a thick layer of pollen. 

Then I hung a large seascape that I found at Goodwill for $1.99 behind the cart.

It's always fun to gather up cocktail napkins, cute stir sticks, little pitchers of herbs, bowls of nuts or munchies and set up the bar cart. It doesn't have to be fancy or expensive. Most of these items were thrifted, including the camel lamp, the cute pineapple swizzle sticks came from the Dollar Store and the herbs came from the yard. Don't have a bar cart? I didn't either for years! You can still gather up all the pretty and creative drinks accessories and put them on a tray or a designated counter space. It just makes things seem a little more festive.

Whew! That was a long post!

Thank you for sticking with us all the way to the end!