Front Porch Before/After

A close friend, who is selling her home, asked me to "refresh" her front porch. To me, this is the perfect project: simple, streamlined and finite. (Insert image of me gleefully clapping while embarking on this projecto). If I could travel around neighborhoods "pearing down" clutter while helping a home make its best first impression, I would be so fulfilled.

Front Porch Before
Front Porch After
Planter After
Sitting Area Before
Sitting Area After
Sitting Area After
As you can see from the photos, CC's front porch is in great shape, we just thought it could be better:

To Start - We removed everything from the porch (aside from the large planters and bolted bench), hosed it all down, cleaned the windows, removed spider webs, etc. A new front door mat was added.

Plantings - The mismatched pots were pulled, not because I had a problem with the variety, I wanted the porch to appear large and low maintenance. We also had a plant budget and filling large containers can add up. If you want to make an impact with a large planter, you have to overflow the container with plants, the fuller the better. We also cut back a lot of the greenery along the staircase making it tidy and open.

Sitting Area - The bench was in a perfect location for enjoying garden views and passerbys. To showcase the area, we removed the hose reel, found a great outdoor seat cushion and pillow, and added a side table and candle lantern that were hidden in the back yard. With the existing wisteria framing the view, this sitting area became even more inviting.

Do you have any front porch before/afters? Thanks for visiting and please feel free to comment/suggest!

Long Time No Post

It's been ages since I have blogged. We've been a house of transition, dropping this guy off:



For his first year here (WSU Dorm room):



In this beautiful part of Washington state:



I'm not sure when I will get used to him being away, but we have fallen back into routine, thus blogging resumption will ensue. Thanks for understanding!

For more photos of the beautiful Palouse region of Washington State, please visit this incredible photographers' website, David Bostock Photography:

2010 Graduate

June rolls around and our mailbox begins to fill with lovely traditional graduation announcements from children we've watched grow up. We could hardly believe our own son was 18 and graduating, let alone the kids who used to come over for play dates, swimming adventures and walks to the park.

A friend had sent a unique announcement in 2009, his card motivated me to try something different too. While a fan of the traditional, I wanted my son's announcement to be personal (his own sentiment), include senior photographs, and be informative (he attached a card with college and new contact information).

And I confess, my timing is off if you wanted to consider using this idea for a spring graduate. If inspired, tag this post to use next year, and in the meanwhile compile great photos for the project.

I typically use Shutterfly to print photos. Their site is simple to use and offers many different card/stationary project options. Considering price, value and layout, I chose to use 4 x 8 photocards. This layout allowed for a 3 image upload with text variations below. Shutterfly walks you through the upload steps as well as sizing the images to fit the project. Edit, finalize and pay and the postcards arrive in home roughly 5-8 days later.

This grad photocard has received rave reviews from friends and family. I hope this post inspires you to consider unique options for the class of 2011!

Opt Out

I'm not sure how it happened, I usually carefully protect both my home address and email address from unsolicited mail, but all of a sudden, I was receiving numerous unwanted catalogs.

Upon returning from vacation last year, my counter was covered in catalogs. The one thing I dread when returning from vacation is going through all the piled up mail, I was overwhelmed. I decided that I no longer wanted to take part in this unnecessary use of paper, gas, energy and time. For the next month, I vowed to take the time to call every single company that was sending me catalogs and opt out of their circulation. So each day if a catalog (s) was in my mailbox, I walked into the house and called. ("No time like the present.") Though it took some time, eventually the catalogs stopped coming and guess what, I don't miss them at all.

Would it be hard to give up your catalogs? Do you feel like you would be missing out?

Awesome Etching

Ever since Wendy posted about numbering stemware at SimplyBrookes, I've had this project in mind. And while wine charms are well, charming, I like the simplicity of numbered stemware.

Step-by-step directions:
Basic stemware from CostPlus, 12 glasses for 24.99. (I am constantly breaking wine glasses,thus, I keep to the basic inexpensive finds).
Carefully mark off a square, I used a 2in.square. This can be tricky as the glass is not flat, bend the tape to keep outline square. Press it down firmly to prevent uneven lines.
Center number sticker. Stickers can be found in the scrapbook section of craft store.
Using gloves, apply a thick layer of etching cream. This cream is highly caustic, use care and be sure to read the directions before applying.
After 5 min., rinse off etching cream, removing tape and sticker(keep your gloves on). I used a large bucket of water outside for rinsing.
Repeat steps to number all your stemware. Once the stemware has dried, the etching appeared darker, looks perfect.
Love how they turned out!

This was a simple project requiring an hour of time and resulting in unique, classic stemware. For a recap, to etch your own glasses, you will need the following items:

• Stemware or glassware
• Etching Cream
• Painters tape, I like Frogtape
• Number stickers
• Gloves
• Inexpensive paint brush
• Heavy paper for square stencil
• Water for rinsing

If you decide to etch your own glasses or other items, please send me photo(s). I would love to see the results.

Thanks for visiting!

Sink Situation

While at my parents house a couple of years ago, I was helping out with some tidying in the bathroom. When I went to grab cleaning products under the sink, I noticed that way in the back, their sink lines had been leaking for some time. The cupboard was somewhat warped and the drywall was water stained. Not that my parents are cluttery, but with the usual amount of items stored below in the sink cupboard, they had not been able to see that the lines had been leaking.

Ever since then, I have been pretty diligent about keeping the area under the kitchen and bathroom sinks clean and clear. This allows for visual leak checks and also limits bumping into PVC piping that can easily loosen or dislodge.

I recently repurposed this wine basket into a slim, simple cleaning caddy for under the kitchen sink. Window cleaner,squeegee, counter top spray, baking soda (for cleaning) and compost bags fit perfectly.

The next time you do dishes, take a look under your kitchen sink:

• Can you streamline the items stored?
• Can excess or bulk cleaning supplies be moved to the laundry room or garage?
• Grab a flashlight, run the water and check for leaks
• Clear out all items, wipe down the cupboard and restock only necessary items
• Repeat above steps in each bathroom

While not the funnest chore, it may save you water damage headaches down the road.

The Vortex

Plastic Vortex in Pacific
As a mother of teens, there are many things that keep me up at night. And though I am known as a bit of a worry wart, you might not expect that I worry about the "plastic vortex", that swirling mass of plastic, roughly the size of Texas, assembled in the Pacific Ocean. My walking friend can attest to my obsessive litter pick-up as I mutter about the vortex.

We can all pat ourselves on the back for our great habits regarding reusable canvas bags for shopping trips. Now it is time to take our habits to another level. As my plastic consumption awareness has grown, I look for more alternatives, most recently these durable (and reusable) polyester bags for produce.

While my local PCC Natural Market sells these bags in various sizes in their produce section, they are not available in most mainstream grocery stores. At ReusableBags.com, a set of 5 bags will cost you $10.95, keeping countless produce bags from landfills and possibly the "vortex".

If you have other tips regarding reduction of using plastic items, please share! Thanks so much for reading this post. I hope this inspires you to adapt and change another habit and pass it on to others.