Month: May 2014

Snazzing Up a Porch

I was sitting here wondering what I could post today and thought, DUH, my screened in patio.  I keep posting current projects and forget those that I did a few years back.

Our screened in porch isn’t very big, 10′ x 12′, but I wanted it to be an extension of our home.  Living here in Columbia, MO, there are so many days and evenings that are perfect for spending outdoors.

This is what I started with.  I wish I had backed up a bit to get a more broad picture, but I think you get the idea:

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We actually had the patio enclosed.  It already had a roof so it was very inexpensive to have someone come out and enclose it for us.  Took the guy less than a day and was only $700.00. 

I wanted to have sheers hanging.  Shoot, this was way before it was a popular idea, so it was challenging to find some that would be long enough.  Now?  You can find them everywhere!   I found these in Penney’s, online.  Not expensive at all and boy have they held up.  In the four years that I’ve had them, I’ve washed them twice.   If I had any inclination to sew, these would have been a breeze to make but me?  Sew?  Uh, nope!   All we did was hang them on a cheapie rod.

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I’m a bit out of order here because once I hung the curtains, I decided to stain the concrete!  I just tied them in knots so they wouldn’t get in the way.  Here’s how I stained them.

I picked out a concrete stain that I thought would be pretty neutral.  It’s funny how it looked afterward, because the differences in color weren’t intended, but I was so happy with the results. I washed the concrete floor of the patio, but to be honest, I didn’t go nutso crazy doing it.  The most important thing I feel is that you vacuum it.  Afterward, I merely rolled the stain on, after watching some YouTube videos.  Of course you need to seal it.  I was a bit concerned about it being slippery, but since we don’t have a pool in this house, it wasn’t that big of a deal.  I got some garage floor sealer, and again rolled it on.  I put three coats of that on.

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I’ve since changed out the cushions on the furniture and moved the furniture around, so here it is now!

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Pendant Light Shade from Galvanized Tub!

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Changing the pendant shades is something I like to do.  The quirkier the better!   It all started with me seeing an old rectangular bucket (for lack of a better word) in a flea market.  I didn’t think much about it at the time, but when I got home I realized “hey, I could make a shade for the pendant lights with that”!  Well damn, the thing was gone when I got back to purchase it.  I searched high and low but couldn’t find anything similar.

I started hunting for new ones.  The largest I could find, other than one that would have been way too big, was the Behrens 5.5 Galvanized Tub in Lowe’s.  $14.99.  Bingo!

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I didn’t want it to look new, but aged.  After doing a little research, the best way to give it the aged look was none other than toilet bowl cleaner!  Yup, you read that right.  You douse it with the cleaner, let it sit, rinse it off and voila’!   I actually left mine outside in the sun for a couple days.  I would have liked a little more patina, but this still looks aged.  No doubt, knowing me, I’ll take it down and try to age it a little more!

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To mount the tub into the existing lights wasn’t difficult at all.  Ideally, instead of three hanging lights, two probably would have been better, but I didn’t want to buy anything.

I took the existing “shades” off the lights and held the tub up and made marks where the holes needed to be.  I knew I needed 1″ holes by measuring the opening of the end of the light:

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The right hole that I drilled doesn’t look even in this picture, but I promise, it is.

We then put the ends of the lights through the holes and screwed the ends on that hold the shades on.  (goodness, did THAT make sense at all???)  Here’s a picture of it after I screwed the bulbs back in:

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Here’s a closer look at the new “shade”

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