Looking for a few 1-2
hour projects to tackle this weekend to create a custom look for your outdoor
space? Check out the ideas below for fab
ways to jumpstart your outdoor look as we finally spring into Spring!
So, ladies and gentlemen, it has been a cold winter. Fun for skiing and sledding, occasionally
pretty to look at, but I think we all can agree that it is time winter has left
the region. For me, the official close
to our arctic temperatures and icy walks is not the moment I put away the snow
shovel, but instead, the reappearance of our front porch, open for
business. But what if the grand opening
of this seasonal room feels a little, shall we say, lack-luster?
As most of my loyal blog followers know, I am a bit obsessed
with our front porch. For years while
travelling as a military family I had grand fantasies about having a front
porch to call my own, and then of course we moved to Saratoga, the Porch
Capital of the Universe, and those dreams became a reality in the form of our
new old house. I have done posts on the
renovation of our porch in the past, and I stand by all of those decisions and
designs, but the one thing I’ve found with a seasonal space that reappears
after hibernating in the basement for the winter season is that sometimes some
sprucing up is in order. When you pull
out the Christmas decorations, don’t you add a new ornament or two for a little
fun? When planning your summer
barbeques, don’t you find a few new recipes to spice things up? In the same
manner, your outdoor space benefits from a little nip and tuck each season to
keep it fresh and interesting. Also, smaller projects that only take a few hours at best can be fun and instantly
gratifying, so it is definitely worth it to carve a little time out of your
busy weekend to add the icing to your porch/deck/patio cake. Below are a few such projects to
tackle…simple, straightforward, and just what the season ordered .
Start a love affair
with spray paint. Outdoor furniture takes quite a beating from the
elements, so sometimes the best place to start is by sprucing up your existing
pieces with a little dose of spray paint.
I love my black faux wicker couch and chaise, as well as our
end-of-season clearance metal bistro set, but everything does look a bit dingy
when it comes out to play each spring.
To combat this, I wiped them down with a damp cloth, then spray a light
coat of black paint over everything and suddenly it feels bright and new. A few
tips to keep in mind–make sure the paint you use is the same style finish as
your original paint (this is in a matte sheen), and be sure to look at your
finished piece after it dries from several angles to make sure the new coat is even and blends. This is the type of touch-up that most of
your guests won’t notice right away, but it will enhance the entire look you
have put together.
If you are in the mood for a more involved project, swing by
your neighborhood yard sales this spring and look for easily paintable pieces
that will compliment your design to add new interest to your space. Our porch has always needed a few more
surfaces that could be easily moved around for drinks, to set a book down,
etc., so these nesting tables, $9.00 each, looked shabby in their original
state but definitely fit the bill. After
several light coats of fire engine red enamel, they take on new life and look
like something that has always graced our outdoor space -just a little addition
for a big impact.
Customize your floor
coverings to suit your style. Ever
buy the plain rug/decorative item because it was less expensive, but really
want the more custom/pricey piece instead?
Purchasing a neutral option doesn’t always have to feel like settling–especially
when it comes to area rugs and door mats for your outdoor oasis. Floor coverings, from wool tufted pieces to
sisal surfaces, take latex paint very well and therefore can be customized to
suit whatever color palette you might envision when you walk out your
door. This area rug was originally a
very simple rectangular design in a natural woven tone with a black outline,
but by simply adding a red line into the border, it all of a sudden feels like
a custom item to fit this space. The
door mat is a beloved new home gift, but over the past few years, the monogram
had faded to a rather unattractive gray lavender color. By covering the faded tone with the signature
red we’ve incorporated on the front porch, this high traffic area is given new
life. A few tips to keep in mind…always
test your paint in an obscure area or on the back of the rug to make sure it
won’t bleed when you apply it, and if your floor covering is a few years old,
avoid an overly bright shade of the accent color you are adding–if your color
is too bright, it will be obvious that your just tacked it on after the fact.
Delete from your
color palette instead of adding. We often see design gurus instruct the
rest of us wannabes to add a new color to your design to give it fresh life, but
what if this time you instead deleted a color or two? Minimizing your color
palette is a really cool way of sharpening the hues you have left. Even though I had already introduced red ,
black , and white to our front porch, I also had a smathering of navy blue in
the mix, and the occasional spring green accent, thinking it would make the
space feel homey and comfortable. By disciplining my choices and adding
interest through pattern and texture instead of additional colors this season,
I find I really like the crispness of these three colors playing off each
other. It is also very striking from
the street, which is an important element to decorating an outdoor space that
we all sometimes forget. So for this
project, my best suggestion would be to add and delete until you get the tight
color scheme you like while standing in the middle of your space, then observe
it from the sidewalk or the yard, a distance away, and see if you still like
the statement you are making!
Take a new trend and
make it your own. Every few months, a new trend or two will emerge in
fashion or design, and let’s face it, we all want to give something a try to
keep our vision interesting. One such
trend is color blocking, where a few strong colors are used next to one another
in a simple style to contrast starkly with one another. In home décor, this has resulted in lots of silhouettes
on pillows, artwork, fabric–often featuring birds, coral, and other natural
items. So how do you take these designs
and make them unique to where you live and what you like? For me, being in the center of horse and
track country, the obvious choice was to go equine, and with an inexpensive
wool blanket, felt, embroidery floss, and some fabric paint, a great project
emerged, low on sweat equity and high on style. Of course the possibilities here are
endless…what would you like to see featured in your outdoor space? Whatever it might be, give this one a try and
see what subject you can come up with!
Everything old can be
new again…with just a little imagination. Remember what I mentioned above
about fun trends? Well, the one downside to trends is they tend to fade away as quickly as they have arrived. So how do you reinvent an item you like into
something that still works now that a new season has begun? This project is a great example of how a
little imagination and a few scrap materials can result in a great new piece.
This tray and these coasters began life as functional photo
frames, but then after a while it seemed like everyone had them and they were
no longer interesting and unique (kinda like those collage photo frames from
college…). By mounting several of the
fabrics from the pillows on the porch inside the mat, the notion of the photo
display has been altered to something fresh and new. For the coasters, a cropped notecard and a
vintage postcard from a local tag sale give these staples from the past few
years new life. Success!
So there you have it–a few projects to experiment with that just
might make your porch shine as you start spring.
What other things do you do to freshen up your outdoor space each
season? Please use the comment area to
share your ideas! J
