Sprucing Up the Porch

With summer settled in, I decided it was high time I finally get a few things accomplished outside.

Here in the south we've been dealing with suffocating heat and humidity, so each time I go outside I turn around and head back in. It's that uncomfortable. The temperatures have been very near 100 for a few weeks, and the heat index has been around 105. Ugh.

And besides that, I've sadly discovered that the mosquitos love me - totally and completely. Seriously, I currently have 37 bites on me.

Anyhoo, back to getting things done.

In typical Funky Junk fashion, Donna has issued a challenge for us to just Gitter Done.

The challenge was to knock something off your to-do list that's been hanging over you for a while. Anything. Didn't have to be big and didn't even have to be decor related.

But since cleaning out all of my files isn't a visually exciting task for you guys to see, I chose to finally tackle the outside a bit.

So I thought, "What the hey! I can do this."

I took the challenge and I'm happy to say I DID finally get my porch looking presentable.

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Here is the front of my house when we first moved in. Mind you, it was winter time so everything looks cleaned up.

Let me just tell you, when summertime hit, along with the heat and all of the heavy rains, those bushes and the weeds took off like wildfire. The bushes got so big they were all touching each other, and the weeds were growing so fast I couldn't keep up with them.

Let's take a closer look at the porch so you can what I've done.

I decided to work on the yard at night because the heat wasn't near as bad and the humidity was more tolerable.

And to fight the mosquitos, my niece gave me a portable OFF insect repellent fan to hook on myself.

(It works fantastic! Thanks Courtney. I even went and bought refills.)

**After seeing my Gitter Done list, I realized that I ALSO qualified for Gina at The Shabby Chic Cottage's 10 Tasks in 10 Days Challenge, so I'm linking up there as well. **

Here is my Gitter Done list:

(Sorry I didn't get a before picture in the summer, but trust me, everything was wild)

1. Trim the bushes - DONE (hubby)

2. Pressure wash porch and get rid of spider webs - DONE

3. Weed all the mulch beds - GETTING THERE

4. Trim the hostas - DONE (there's a story on that at the end of this)
5. Find something to control the mosquitos - DONE (cool tiki bottles from Big Lots)

6. Pot flowers for the steps - DONE (but they keep dying from the heat)

7. Get a vinyl address for the front door - DONE (via ExpressUrself - thanks Lynette)

8. Put some seating on porch - DONE

9. Find something to hold my magazines - DONE (thrift shop)

10. Make pillows for the seating - (Borrowed some from my market stash for now)

11. Make wreath for door - DONE (but ended up on window instead)

12. Find a pleasant sounding windchime - DONE (Joann Fabrics 70% off)

13. FInd something for the morning glory's to grow on - DONE (again Big Lots)

14. Get solar lights for the pathway - DONE (Walmart, $2.50 each)

YEAH ME! I DID IT - ALL OF IT!

My mother will be so proud. :)

(Just keep in mind as you look at the pictures that I like things simplified, practical and pretty, so you won't see a ton of stuff fluffing up my porch.)

I was shooting into sun here, so forgive the glare on all the windows.

See that screen on the top of my porch? The storm blew it off and I haven't figured out how to reach it to get it back on yet. Forgive me.

It's hard to get good pictures with those columns in the way, but I love them anyway.

Eventually the Morning Glory will make it's way up that iron piece.

So there it is. No big major renovation, just a porch spruce up. 

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In my to do list, I told you there was a story about cleaning up my hostas.

Like I said, we've had terrible heat, which obviously results in sun damage, and my plants have definitely been affected.

One side of the porch gets it much worse than the other, which is why I removed the hanging baskets from the left side.

Look at my poor hosta on that side.

Trust me, it's worse than it looks.

I started cutting back all of the dead leaves.........

Only to discover that they were ALL dead.

A quick "what to do" from the internet told me to cut all the leaves off and leave the stems at about 8" and wait for the new growth.

Another site told me to pull them out completely and replace them since the leaves start before the stems do on this particular plant.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO TO THEM?

PLEASE ENLIGHTEN ME.

I don't want to completely lose them if I don't have to.

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A little side note: Here's a sneak peak at that new wreath.

I'll be whipping up a tutorial pretty soon.