OUR BACK PORCH PROGRESS

Hello friends.

I hope you are having an excellent week.

In Texas we are enjoying the cooler mornings and temperatures in the 80's  during the day with barely any humidity. This is the best time of the year for us.

And because of that reason, you will understand why I still have porches and outdoor spaces in my mind. 
We are actually enjoying ours now almost daily.

I have been wanting to write this post for a while now, but it just took me a bit to get all the pictures together.

We did start all the upgrades of our back porch three Summer's ago. Yes, it is taking us a long time, but I am proud to say, we have done all the work ourselves little by little. And we are not finished yet, but getting there slowly.

Now, I warn you, this is a long post! :)

Eight years ago, when we moved into our new home, this is what our back yard and porch looked like.

And this is where we are today.

 The back of our home has a top and bottom porch.

The roof of the bottom porch was open, so every time it rained the porch got soaked.

We had to figure out how to resolve that problem, before closing off the porch roof. 

My husband, being the smart man he is, invented a system that directs all the rain water right into the gutter.

He worked on it all Summer. And he did good! 

In three years, we never had a leak.

After that problem was resolved, we added new trim in between both porches and closed the roof of the bottom porch using bead board.

It took us weeks to get it all painted in triple digit weather.

The heat was brutal!

Soon after, we installed tile on the porch floor.

That project only took us a long holiday weekend.

And added some pretty outdoor ceiling fans.

We have been enjoying our back porch for a long while now and even if it is raining, we can seat outside without getting wet.

The next Spring we started building the deck.

Let me tell you, that was a job!

After six months of non stop building, we spent a full weekend on our knees filling up all the thousands of screw holes and we rented an industrial sander to prepare the deck for staining.

This is the stain we used. It was easy to apply, but a lot of work.

Last October, during the long Columbus Day weekend, we got all our children together and put everyone to work in helping to stain our new deck.

Even baby J. gave us a hand. LOL

I can't believe how little he was then.

And after three days of non stop work, we had a new and shiny deck.

But it didn't end there.

During the winter months, my husband spent many, many hours in his shop building the post and railings for the deck.

And this last Spring it all started to come together.

We painted the post and side railings in the same original color as the siding of our home and the top railings the same color as the deck floor.

At that time, we also added a pergola to create our outdoor eating area.

After that, I worked on creating a seating area on the lower level of the deck.

 I purchased a new outdoor rug.

And I painted all our old chairs using oil rubbed bronze.

 

I also bought new chair cushions from Lowe's and added a fresh coat of paint on our old small tables.

 
And that is what we have been able to accomplish so far.

 

We still have a lot more work ahead of us.
We need to finish painting the step raisers and next Spring we will be starting to build an outdoor kitchen.

 Sometimes it is amazing to me that we have done all this work ourselves. Here is a before and after.

And just this past weekend, we made some changes to the porch area. I will share that with you all soon.
And that is it for today! What do you think?
I hope you enjoyed this tour of our outdoor space.
 I know you probably thought this post was going to go on forever. :)

Thank you so much for stopping by.
See you all soon!