home improvements

welcome to our porch.  

this photo is actually from before it was ours but it serves to show you how dark and cave-like the porch was.  the other day, i trimmed down the honeysuckle - it had a radius of about 3 feet and was out-of-control-wild.  did you know that honeysuckle grows off old wood?  maybe my terminology is off, but basically we had 2 1/2 feet of old wood (think bird's nest for a huge bird) and 6 inches on the outside of pretty green growth.  anyway, it was time to pare down... now it looks kind of sad but i'm hoping for a beautiful plant come spring.

anyway.....

here is what our porch looked like thursday afternoon.  bare honeysuckle/grapevine, handrail in the middle of the steps, stains all over the cement, painted house number, brown storm door, black front door (did you even notice the cute diamond glass we have in there?  me either ... ok, i noticed it, but it doesn't really stand out at all)

 here is our garage door as of first thing this morning - more brown. 

and now, are you ready for the big reveal?

here is our porch this afternoon.  i know, right?  just kidding :)  so i painted the door, painted the storm door (it will do until we just go out and get a new one), and painted all the trims.  we hired weston's cousin to acid wash the concrete to even out the stains and get rid of the painted numbers.  the concrete still looks aged like it should be so i'm happy.  he also cut out that ugly handrail which, by the way, i wouldn't have minded if it weren't in the middle of the porch. 

 cute little diamond window looks much better behind gray, don't you think?

 and don't forget the crisp white garage door!  i'm so excited about white, can you tell?  even if it shows the dents in the door more than the brown did, i'm still wildly happy with the results.

and you want to know the best part of it all?  my husband and i worked side by side to get this all done.  great way to spend a saturday (and don't worry, he was still able to squeeze in a couple hours of skateboarding.)