Words On Wendhurst

Last summer our focus was on the front of the house. We figured that we had ignored the outside for long enough, and that our neighbors would appreciate us improving the curb appeal a bit. So we slaved and toiled all summer long, and into the fall to take the front of our house from drab to fab. All of our efforts paid off, when we ended up with the front looking like this:

But the back of the house received zero attention. :-) We’ve tried really hard to balance out our life with our renovations, and not allow them to take over completely. With that in mind, last summer we decided to only work on the front. Which meant that the back of the house still looked like this:

Not quite as pleasant, right? So this summer we thought we would tackle at least part of this mess in the back, and at the same time spruce up a fun little deck area that we could enjoy throughout the summer. My other two goals were to mostly tackle projects I could do myself, and to not spend huge amounts of money or time by changing anything. We would simply work with what we had, using paint, new light fixtures and simple accessories to make everything liveable. And here’s what we accomplished:

Quite a difference, right? I need to mention here that we ignored the left side of the house entirely. Its time will come, but we need to kill some weeds, get rid of some garbage and take out some planters before we can even think of “sprucing up.” So this is two thirds of the back fixed up. :-) We continued with the yellow and green color scheme we started with in the front, and then added in some fun shots of red, blue and colored glass to make it very festive.  As you can see, the difference is drastic.

Painting all of the exposed wood, and caring for the neglected deck wood really changed the overall look. For all of the wood that I painted, I simply sprayed off any dirt, then followed with a coat of Kilz primer, and finally with outdoor paint. I love how sunny and warm the yellow is, with the bright pops of green. Caring for the wood of the deck floor was a little more tedious. It took me several hours to sand it all smooth, then I sprayed a deck cleaning solution on, and scrubbed that off. Finally, after everything was clean and dry, we spent a Saturday afternoon applying an outdoor deck stain to the freshly scrubbed boards.

The color is super similar to the concrete paint color we used on the front porch floor. Although not intended, I love that there is such a continuity from front to back now. The other thing that made a huge difference was painting the storm door that leads into the house and swapping out the old handle for a new black one. It’s just a simple plastic door, so it looks much better painted.

The deck isn’t large, just 10×11 feet, so there was just enough room to add two chairs by the door, and a table and chairs on the opposite side. We made the table from a table base found on Craigslist, and an old cabinet door screwed on as a top. Eventually, I’d like to make a nicer top, but for now, covered with a red and white gingham cloth, it looks sweet and allows us to eat out here in the summertime.

See how rich the wood looks now? And it is splinter free, which encourages bare feet. :-)

The plants, other than the silk poppies on the table, are mostly clearance finds at the garden centers. Next year I hope to grow some healthy geraniums and petunias to fill up all the pots, but for now, these bargain babies provide some much needed splashes of color.

These last ones, the red petunias, are my favorites. We found the little red pails at Target for $1.00 a piece, and I filled them with a six pack of red petunias from Walmart. They are the perfect scale for the corners of the deep windowsills, and they make me smile every time I see them.

I ordered a new light from Overstock for the funky pole in the middle of the deck. The halogen spotlight that was previously there was broken, and had way too much wattage for the small area. This little wall mount lantern was a much better fit. We purchased a decorative halogen bulb at Lowes for inside, and I love how it looks through the glass of the light.

The aqua colored votive holders on either side were clearanced out to $2.57 at Pier 1. I used some floral wire to string them from the ironwork above, and they are so pretty with the sun shining through them, or with tealights inside at night.

I wanted this area to be slightly reminiscent of the balconies in Spain, so I hunted down some pretty plates to hang on the wall, as they so often do there. Beneath them are some colored glass jars and bottles I thought were cool, and a metal smiling sunflower from Christmas Tree Shops.

Lover also made up a bunch of glass tiki torches. We simply collected some little bottles we liked, and filled them with tiki fluid. The wick is a length of sisal rope, threaded through a hole made in a bottle cap. Once the sisal is saturated, these torches burn super clean and work wonders at keeping the bugs away from the deck. The green torches below were made from cooking wine bottles, and we repurposed their tops to hold the “wick” in place.

We also painted the front of the entryway, and it looks tons better. I’m slowly building up a pretty flower garden for this planter, and already it looks tons better than it did before. My beautiful morning glories from last year naturalized, and I love how they look climbing up either side of the window.

So that’s how we transformed our less then stellar deck into a fun, relaxing retreat. I can’t decide if my favorite part is the yellow wall color, the happy red geraniums or those cool plates on the wall. What about you?

Linked to Sunday Showcase @ By Stephanie Lynn, Metamorphosis Monday @ BNOTP, DIY Parade @ DIY Showoff

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