My Back Porch Makeover

I have two awesome decks off the back of my house.

One is on the third floor and it’s connected to my bedroom.

The other one is on the second floor and it’s right off the main living area and my office.

Before I got married I lived in a super cute little condo and it had a really tiny little deck off my bedroom.

It was like a tiny little jungle.

I had plants hanging and stacked and I loved it out there.

I’ve been so overwhelmed the last fifteen years that decorating anything has never really been anywhere near the top of the list of priorities.

I’ve been in my new place for a year and a half and I haven’t done anything at all with either of the decks.

It didn’t really occur to me to do anything out there until this past week.

It took that long for the dust to settle while the kids were at their father’s house.

So I’ve been transforming the second floor porch.

A couple days ago I shared this post detailing some of the changes I’d made.

It took me a couple days to get it finished.

The biggest challenge I had was I had no money to spend on this.

So everything I did was using stuff I already had.

(except for these – I’m plant sitting for my mom)

Okay here’s what the deck looked like two days ago:

Here’s the other side:

There was just a bunch of random stuff out there. 

I rearranged the furniture.

I also dragged three trunks from the garage into the house. My parents gave them to me a couple months ago and I totally forgot I had them!

I stacked some of them up and used one as a coffee table.

I also used to love gardening and that kind of fell by the wayside after marriage also.

I had the butcher block/island from the old house in the garage also.

I brought that out and decided it could either be a potting table or a bar.

I gathered a few vases and jars from around the house and put them on the table. 

I love this little green tray but haven’t really had a place to put it and it’s been in the bottom of the hutch in the dining room for eighteen months!

Now it has a home and I get to look at it every day.

The bifold doors that were in the closet right as you enter the house were in the basement.

I brought those upstairs. I thought I’d put them behind the table that was already out there and use them as a screen. I really wish I had another set, but I had to make due with what I had.

So at first it looked like this on one end:

And it looked like this on the other end:

I was happy with that. I was done!

And then yesterday I was doing a Facebook live in E-School and I heard a big THUD out on the deck and had no idea what had happened.

The screw the fern was hanging on fell out of the beam it was screwed into and the whole thing crashed onto the floor.

Luckily it was intact and there was no mess.

Unfortunately I’m terrified of heights and there is no way in hell I was trying to put another hook up (I had one) because it’s a long drop to the ground on the other side of that railiing.

But there was a big hole where the fern was and I couldn’t let it go.

I’ve always wanted an outdoor porch with some flowy curtain panels.

That can be pricy.

I had some hooks with screws on them.

I also have a lot of clothesline rope.

I had an idea.

I screwed two of the hook/screws as high up into the sides of the deck as I could reach.

I went to look for some white flat sheets and that’s when I realized I had the curtains I used to have at the old house in my dining room.

They were a light linen material and they were perfect.

I had six panels.

I took four of them and fed the clothesline through them.

And I hung them up! I also put some Christmas lights on the hooks.

There’s a little bit of a sag in the rope, but for the most part, they look great.

The boxes on top of the trunk were inside one of the other trunks.

After hanging up the curtains on one end of the deck I couldn’t leave the other end bare.

I rigged up some more clothesline curtain rods using these screw hooks I found:

I screwed them directly into the trim.

That looks so much better!

The tablecloth on the bistro table is a scarf I had in my closet.

I switched out two extra dining room chairs for the plastic chairs that were out there because I like the dark wood color.

I took some pillows from inside and put them on the couch.

The mason jars were in a cabinet in my kitchen and the pink flowers are trimmings from the geraniums on the other side of the couch.

I layered an old window frame I had in the garage with an old picture I had in the basement and a mirror someone gave me when we moved.

I had a closet pole bracket in the basement. 

I hung that up in the corner and hung the fern back up on it.

And now that end of the porch looks like this during the day:

I pulled vases and little bottles from different areas and put them on the table, along with this little lamp that was up in my bedroom.

I sat there today and wrote in my journal and ate my lunch. And dinner.

It’s not only pretty during the day.

As it starts to get dark it starts to feel like a different room.

I love it!!!

And I didn’t spend a penny on it!

I used old screws and bent nails and repurposed stuff I had in the basement and garage and other rooms in the house. 

I used old curtains and scarves as tablecloths and Christmas lights for lighting.

There are no rules when you are decorating.

Do whatever you want, and do whatever makes you feel happy.

That’s what I did. 

And if you need me, I’ll be out on my back deck until at least October 1st.