{inspired} driftwood: styled

Happy Monday friends! I wanted to update you on that gorgeous piece of driftwood I snagged on my Salmon River trip this summer. When I threw out the question - what on earth do I do with this?? - the majority of you agreed that it should either go on the wall or as part of a table setting. I love both these ideas! But if I'm being honest, getting things on the wall in our house is a multiple-month process. So, while I'm sure it'll end up on a wall someday, let's take a look at is in it's current state - as a centerpiece on our back porch farm table.

First, I brought in an airplant to add a little life. Second, I set it atop a cute piece of fabric. Simple and cute centerpiece.

See? The air plant fits perfectly in this little hole!

I love the shape and texture of the airplant. It's a airplant Xerographica Tillandsia and it came from The Fallen Tree. Now, let's see if I can keep it alive -- I'm not sure there's enough light in the back porch. Fingers crossed ;).

This weekend I also created a small table setting to see how it would look as part of an evening of entertaining. I pulled together a couple of nature-inspired melamine plates, topped with our everyday white dishes, grey napkins, and a leafy sprig from our yard. 

But quickly switched to a pink napkin, which adds a nice pop of color. 

All in all, I'm really excited about the addition of this piece of driftwood to our back porch :)

{renovate} backporch lighting

When I posted our backporch makeover last week the most commented on feature was our lights! So, let's take a closer look at them, shall we?

{That mess in the background? Welcome to life during a remodel ;)}

Let me preface this by saying - lights for the backporch weren't even on my radar. My plan a for lighting in the space was twinkle lights. But when we went to Astoria last summer for our birthdays, we came across the most charming architectural salvage store, Astoria Vintage Hardware, which also sells amazing upholstery fabrics and some other new items. And, that's where I found the lights. I totally had a gut feeling about them, and we brought them home with us without having a place to put them. Friends, for us, this is living on the edge. As a general rule, we don't make home purchases without a specific use or place in mind for the item. But I knew they were worth the risk.

On the drive home, I was imagining them in the kitchen. But as it turns out, they were destined for the back porch, because they are perfect for that space.

Here's what they looked like at first. But, we thought they needed something a little sturdier to make them seem more like a fixture.

So Chris built this awesome wood fixture that the lights hang through.  I love this in ways I can't even begin to explain. It ties the lights together, it's dark stain is an awesome feature in the very white room, it compliments the farm table, it hides all the cords (functional!) and my awesome husband built it, so you know, I'm biased :).

As you can see, we have pretty small bulbs in there. This actually creates the perfect evening lighting situation. Not too dark, not too bright. Perfect for the dinner parties we like to throw in the space.

So, if I were writing this up last month, this would be the end. The only place I'd ever seen these lights were these two, in that one little store, in that one little tiny town on the Oregon coast. 

Randomly though, I ran across them online the other day (!). So, if you love them, you can find them here. 

Friends, I'm curious to hear. What's something that you purchased without having a "spot" in mind -- you just knew you loved it??

{inspired} Mood Board Monday

Happy Monday friends!

I'm so bummed I couldn't post on friday -- especially after I was trying to hard to get back into the swing of things. But a food poisoning + downed Internet combo did me in at the end of the week. BUT, food poisoning is GONE (thank goodness!) and the Internet is fixed, so I'm back with one of my favorite -- Mood Board Monday! 

Do you guys know why I love this link party so much? It always, always, pushes me out of my comfort zone, design-wise. This month our lovely host, Sarah, chose a few pairs of John Robshaw fabrics to design a room around. I think John Robshaw fabrics are beautiful, but they aren't fabrics/patterns I've ever thought of using in my own home. It was fun - and hard! - to complete this challenge, but as always, I'm so glad I did!

I've been dreaming of outdoor rooms lately. While I LOVE our backporch and the way we're choosing to use it, I really want to create a space to lounge outside. It's hard to lounge at a dining room table :). So for this Mood Board Monday, I created an outdoor living room space.

1. First, I started with a large sectional sofa. Don't those thick cushions look so comfy?! I also love the black wicker. It is a nice background to the fun bright cushion colors.

2. I would also add into two big cozy chairs to complete a seating arrangement.

3. To add a little color - and block the sun - I've added a huge umbrella. Custom-made with John Robshaw Jajam Brinjal fabric.

4. Pillows! They add so much life to this space! There's a John Robshaw Jajam Brinjal (to complement the umbrella) and Algiers Lotus fabrics. There's a black and white fabric, to add a graphic punch, and a lovely dot pillow as well.

5. The coffee table in the space doubles as an outdoor fireplace! This might be my favorite part -- you can turn it on when the weather cools and it creates light, ambiance and heat. Plus, you can roast s'mores! :)

6. Potted plants really help bridge the connection between the yard and the outdoor space.

7. A small side table is great for drinks, plant and candles.

8. A large basket holds a number of blankets to cuddle up in. Here I've chosen a purple, grey striped and cream throw.

9. Lastly, what outdoor space is complete without twinkle lights? :)

{renovate} the never ending-back porch-story

Friends! Hi! Happy Monday! 

While Chris worked on the kitchen this weekend (trim + concrete board!), I worked a little on our back porch, which I haven't talked a lot about -- just a sneak peek here and there. See, my original intention for the back porch was to finish it, have a super dramatic before and after, and then fill you in the details.

Well, nearly three summers after we started the project, we still aren't finished! It takes a back seat to all other projects. And, I realized that my original intentions were silly. Very few spaces in our house are actually done and part of the fun is bringing you guys along for the journey. So I'm going to back up and fill you on where we're at so far. {And please excuse the mess that is the back porch right now -- it's getting cleaner, but it's the staging area for the kitchen!}

For those of you who haven't been reading for the last couple years, the back porch is a screened in addition off the back of our house. Three sides are wall, and one side is screened windows. It's a completely amazing space, but it's needed A LOT of work. The photo above is where the back porch began. Full of crap, dark, dark, dark wood, and unfinished/missing pieces of wall.

My husband, in a move of genius and brilliant forethought, saved the old siding from when he renovated our garage, because it matched the existing siding in the back porch perfectly. So first we set about filling in the missing walls. The green boards are the old garage boards. You can see the texture of the paint in this photo. What you can't see is that the dark boards above were also treated with kind of lacquer that also gave them a lot of texture.We talked through so many options about how to treat the wall. Do we sand it all down? What look are we going for?

In the end we decided to paint the entire thing -- walls + ceiling -- white. This keeps the room, casual, bright and cohesive. And, you can still see the texture, but it doesn't look bad under the coat of white paint. The painting itself was, um ... labor intensive. Because of the grooves between the siding boards, paired with the unevenness and nails in the ceiling, we had to paint the whole room with a BRUSH. Two coats of oil primer + one coat of paint. When I say it took forever, that is an understatement. BUT, white paint was exactly what this space needed and instantly brightened it up. Painting the back porch is by far our most dramatic makeover to date. Seriously. It's even more dramatic than tearing out the wall between our kitchen and living room. {ps, we don't have a dog! We were puppy sitting at the time :)}

You can see in this photo that we also painted the foundation a dark grey to match the rest of the foundation. It also helps really ground the white. We also painted the floor, but I'll talk more about that later.

Here is the other side of the space. Again, missing siding boards, nasty old house door and jail-like and rusty screen door. Actually, if you look at the top left of the house door, you can see a space because the door didn't even fit. Our energy bills LOVED that in the winter ;).

New boards + new doors + paint make a huge difference. You can read about my painting the doors here. And, you can read more about the work that went into this wall here. We had to tear out the whole wall : |.

Clearly the porch was a late addition, because that window goes to a bedroom. Obviously ;). You can see it's broken and very poorly painted.

Aah. Much better. New window glass, new paint and messy paint scraped off and cleaned up.

Walls + ceiling + new lights.

A view of the ceiling. You can see the nails from the roof poking through. It adds ... texture.

So that is our backporch. Friends, we use this space ALL THE TIME. We LOVE it. I'm so glad we've turned it into a space we love and use :).

Why was I out there this weekend? Well a bunch of the caulk between the siding boards cracked and left huge gaping holes. Ugh. So I re-caulked and touched up the paint. It's looking awesome again :). 

From this point on, I'll make sure to keep you filled in on back porch updates. There are still a couple bigger projects up our sleeves back there and I'm excited to bring you guys along for the journey!