Porch Railing Planter Boxes

It's time to plant the annuals! I love planting flowers, its like therapy. :)
I've been doing a little better the last couple of years, not going totally crazy at the greenhouse...but it is hard!  I limited myself to buying just enough to fill 2 hanging baskets and 4 pots on the deck and the 3 railing planters on the front porch.  In this year's planters I have Million Bells petunias (in orange, red, and pink), sweet potato vine, New guinea impatiens, and vinca.

My previous blog post and various pictures of the railing planters have been getting lots of traffic from pinterest lately, so I thought I would do a follow-up on what I did this year to improve them a bit.
I wanted the planters to have the same look as my moss-lined hanging baskets .  I found expandable ones at Home Depot. (I don't think they carry them anymore, though).

They are meant to hold one of those plastic window boxes, but I ran some wire around them so that I could line them with spahgnum moss and plant directly in that.  It worked out pretty well, but I noticed that by mid to late summer, when the plants were full grown, the boxes just weren't deep enough and didn't hold enough dirt to keep the flowers happy.

So this year I lined them with chicken wire that extended about 2 inches above the top. Much Better! There should be plenty of room for healthy and happy roots well into fall.

And as long as we're out here, here's a few more front yard photos.  :)
Ooohh, and you can see in the picture above that we also finally got our bubbler fountain (from the other house) installed at the new place.

And this is a photo of the house when we purchased it 2 and a half years ago...

And this is it now...

We still have quite a bit of work to do on the front landscaping, but that will all come in time.
Have you gotten any annuals planted yet? Happy gardening, everyone.

Our First Home ~ Saying Goodbye

I know it has been forever since I've been here...but shortly after my last post, Hubby agreed to list the Tiny house with a realtor (his sister). She got it on MLS and within 10 days we had an offer just under our asking price.  YEA!  Then started the long process of home inspection, bank appraisal, buyer's loan approval, and underwriting.  But everything was finalized on March 2nd and we said goodbye to our first home.  We've owned this house for 21 years and have many wonderful memories and did countless home improvement projects.   Here's a few pictures of the house in it's minimally staged state.

 

 

 

I'm not sure that I've ever shared photos of the basement.  When we purchased the home in 1992, it had a typical cement, unfinished basement. We did most of the major work to finish the space about 18 years ago, but the bathroom had only made it to the drywall stage and the wet bar area had only been plumbed.  So those areas are newly finished and unfortunately, I never really got to enjoy them. :(

The flooring here in the lower level is a wood-look vinyl plank. We had had berber carpeting down while we lived there, but it needed to be replaced, so we thought this was an excellent choice and budget-friendly. (I'll share the installation process in a future post).

 

 

 

 

The doorway in the hallway leads to the work/storage room.

 



Opposite the storage room is the bathroom.  We didn't get the glass shower doors installed, but Hubby did an awesome job on the tile!

 

And at the end of the hall is the small laundry and utility room.

 

Well, that's the Tiny home tour. Its a little sad to say goodbye, but we live just down the street, so we do pass it everyday. lol  :)

 

 

 

 

Summer Deck Photos

I just wanted to share a few pictures of the deck and planters before the blazing heat completely fries the poor flowers.

The hanging baskets were planted with sweet potato vine, new guinea impatiens, and a little yellow trailing flower that I can't remember the name of. They took a hit during the stretch of 100+ degree days we had, but they're starting to perk  up again.

I also have a couple of large planters with multi colored coleus, which I love because they seem to do well where ever I put them.

The new patio furniture came from Target.com and I'm very happy with it.  Its very sturdy, not crazy expensive, and the cushions are thick and well made with piped edges. We also have the chaise...so comfy!  I accented with my bright pink throw pillows that I made for the living room of the tiny house.  The color is perfect for the deck and plays off the beautiful crepe myrtle.

I'd like to get an outdoor rug for the deck, but not sure how well it would hold up. I'd rather not have to carry it in and out all summer. Oh well, Hunny doesn't seem to mind not having one. :)
Thanks for touring the deck with me!  Stay cool and have a great weekend, everyone!

Tiny House Porch Addition

There has been so much going on lately that I completely forgot to share pictures of the Tiny House's recent face lift. The project started last summer (before we purchased and even found the new house) and it was something I had wanted for a long time...a front porch!

This is what the front looked like before. Your typical 1960-70's brick ranch, complete with the obligatory yew hedge.

Just a small stoop and no overhang to protect guests from the elements.
The blacktop driveway had seen better days.

The first stage of the project was to have a new concrete driveway and porch slab poured. The front hedge came out and a we installed a jar bubbler fountain under the window.

Then the porch was built and we started laying out where we would lay the paver walkways. A local garden center drew up landscaping plans for us (many places offer this as a free service knowing you'll likely spend lots of money on the plants).
We love the craftman style and tried to incorporate a little of that into the design of the porch supports. We gave the drawings to our contractor and he did a wonderful job building the structure.
And here it is now. We finished up the painting ourselves to save on money and put in the rest of the landscaping.

I'd still like to get a few more plants in and a couple of chairs with pretty pillows on the porch, but its a definite improvement. I'm a little sad that I never got to enjoy it while I lived here but,we've still got a bit of work to do before it goes on the market and we're just a few minutes down the road, so I plan on sitting out on my new front porch every chance I get. :-)

I'm sharing this project over at the Shabby Creek Cottage link party. And at Between Naps on the Porch Metamorphosis Monday.