The Front Porch - Finished (for now)

Now that summer is almost over (the timing of my posts may or may not be way off) I thought I would share some of the updates we did on the front porch this year. But first, a look back through time. This is what our screened in porch looked like a week or so after we moved into the house:

I'll wait while you pin that.

So, obviously it needed some updates. So we painted the front door and swinging bench and bought some new furniture from Target and it turned into this:

It's definitely a lot better, but I felt like it was still lacking something. I shared the makeover on the blog and asked for your opinions about what to do (which resulted in a conversation about whether wind chimes are a good thing - jury's still out).

Ultimately Eric and I decided that the furniture we bought was just way too big. So we sold the furniture on Craiglist  and Eric made a table out of pallet wood. We also bought these chairs (they were discounted to $130 for 4) so the total of the new furniture was less than what we sold the old furniture for (I just love when makeovers turn out like that). We also painted the trim and replaced the ceiling fan.

 Here's how it turned out:

Much better, right?? The porch has finally become a cozy, fun place for us to hang out. We love eating dinner at the table and the porch swing is my favorite place to read. Our house is small, so the front porch has really become an additional living space.

Sources
Blue Paint: Cobalt by Olympic
Table: DIY
Chairs: Overstock
Door mat: Target
Orange Pillow: IKEA
Flower pillows: came with a couch
String lights: Target
Triangle Banner: DIY 
Blue plastic lanterns: Hobby Lobby