Working on the Front Porch

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The house we have now in Prince Rupert has an enclosed porch on the front, facing the street. Over the years, it must have attracted more and more plants, until it looked like this:

 

I gave away a lot of the plants, as there were just far too many. There were eight orchids in this room, along with probably 20 other plants.

 

 

I’ve boxed up the orchids and found about 5 orchid books in the house. These are all going to my Mom on Vancouver Island. A friend is going to do a door to door delivery for us!

 

Here’s the porch after a lot of the plants had disappeared. I dismantled the wide shelf that was here. It held a lot of other plants and it was so wide, it took up too much room. Once I got it taken off, I realized there was another board underneath it. My father in law took it down and we repurposed it.

 

Here is the other end of the porch, the one closest to the outside door. I loved that you could lift the lids and put your wet boots underneath. There are even holes for ventilating the cubbies. I don’t know why, but the people added really sloped lids, so really you couldn’t sit on them to remove your boots.

 

I asked my father in law if he could take the slope out, so the lids would be flat seats. That actually turned out be easier said than done, but he did a great job on this finicky project. We picked up a package of knotty pine panelling and he put that up on the lower part of the wall. I got extra lucky when it came to painting, because the step stool just barely fit inside each cubbie. This made painting a lot easier for me.

The same wall after four coats of paint. I put on two coats of tinted primer, followed by two top coats of paint. I could not have gotten away with less coats, so I know how long it is going to take me to paint the living room. Sigh.

 

 

Here is what it looks like now. All the trim has been put back and I put some decorative things on the top shelf. I added a couple of pretty pillows and painted the bottom part of the cubbies. The colour is still not quite what I want, it is too purple and I want it burgundy, so it will get painted again.

That fir wood shelf that we repurposed? My father in law turned it into a coat rack, I love it. I need one more coat hook, and I know I bought enough but can’t find the last one. I keep forgetting to buy another one, but when I do, Graham will just add it. I am really happy with how this end of the porch turned out.

 

And here’s what the other side of the room looks like right now. I still have two walls to paint, but that will wait a little while. We will change out the light fixtures and I’m hoping to find something age appropriate for the house.

Once the porch is finished, I’ll post pictures of the end result. What do you think? I’m open to decorating ideas!