Arbor Oak Cottage: porches

Showing posts with label porches. Show all posts

27 August 2015

Late August porch sitting

It has been a long hot summer here in Oregon and you probably are thinking I am going to say I am ready for the cooler fall weather. NOT...I am quite spoiled wearing shorts and flip flops and picking roses from my cottage garden. The winters here tend to be long, grey and wet. Usually we do not have such dry summers and there have been many downsides to it this year.
Mid July always brings 2 weeks of leaf hopper bugs. Almost impossible to sit out on the porch in the evenings. This year right on the heels of the leaf hoppers we had an invasion of millions (and I am not kidding) of tiny black ant like bugs. Every house that bordered the farmland here in our little town was affected. It was useless to spray as the numbers were too great and too widespread. So we had to wait them out for another couple weeks. This meant I had to strip the coverings off my bench too.

But now I back in business, enjoying my "porch sittin". I came across this fun transfer at a craft store and added it to an old shutter. It gets a lot of attention from passers by stopping to read what it says.

I covered the bench with an old quilt and topped with a quaker lace tablecloth that has seen better days--always a reuse for everything!

Easy no sew pillows! An old denim skirt I simply pinned to a pillow form and added some crochet scraps to the the pockets.

My watering can collection is so fun to decorate with.

Below is a very old can that came from my husbands family in Nebraska

Garden flowers in anything that will hold water!

As you can see, late summer here brings some really dry farmland. This view is from the front walkway of my porch looking south.

So for at least a couple more weeks I will enjoy the last colors, sites and smells of summer. The corn stalks are drying in the back garden and I am already planning the fall porch decor.

02 July 2015

Front porch sitting Patriotic style

A little patriotic decorating this week for the front porch! I do this every year, but try to add a little twist. I came across this little freedom sign, nothing unique about it other than I liked the aged country farm coloring.

I drug out my old king size quilt, the colors work really for all summer, but I like it for the 4th. The easy no-sew pillow covers are just fabric wrapped like a gift and safety pinned. Makes the fabric easy to store and I can use the pillow forms for something else.

Love to have lots of red flowers! I planted this pot with the 4th in mind although the little daisies are not happy in this brutal heat we have been having :( An attack of bud worm has set back my petunias, so the blooms are sparse.

Above is my shutter "flag" project I worked on last month. I saw a version on pinterest and thought it was an awesome re-purpose of old shutters. I have had a thing for old shutters lately--lots of cool ideas out there!

I didn't get a real good picture, but I found this cute hypertufa watering can planter at a garage sale to add to my watering can collection.

Below is the evening view from our front porch. Panorama pics didn't work too well. We have farmland on two sides, and some nice Cascade foot hills and mountain views. In the first picture (hard to see) there is a peek at Mt. Jefferson. Not too much snow left on it.

Watch for a tutorial on this shutter "flag" and other shutter re-purpose fun later this month

Let Freedom ring!

Happy 4th of July!

13 October 2014

Fall on the porch

As most have figured out, I like to decorate my large porch! Fall decorating comes a bit later for me. It is really hard to let go of my summer flower pots as they tend to linger well into October since we usually do not have the killing frosts until late November here in western Oregon.
With a big change in the weather coming this week, I decided it was time to make the transition even tho it was 75f and nice warm breeze!

I have to admit, the wagon was not my idea, it was inspiration from Pinterest and I just happened to have a red wagon to pull it off.

I picked up the black enamel camp pot at an estate sale this summer. Usually you don't see many this color or the wider stockier shape. Kinda cool to add to a fall display too!

And of course, my trusty wood carrier, always transitions to any seasons display!

Normally not a big fan of mums, but I couldn't resist these yellow ones, they were like big fluffy cushions!

Love this metal sunflower sculpture I picked up several years ago.

A couple of "go to" pieces that seem to always fit. Vintage metal watering can and the wood picket fence wall hanger. Some of the pumpkins are "real" and some are not! Quite a conversation piece for our visitors to try figure out!

I hope you enjoyed the mini tour!

03 July 2014

Patriotic Porch

Having a little fun this week decorating my porch space for the holiday weekend. This the first time I decorated for the 4th of July, usually I just use one them and leave it up all summer, but I decided changing things up a little would be fun.

I grabbed this old king size quilt from my linen closet, perfect fit for the teak bench I must say! I had this wonderful vintage tablecloth pillow sham that had all the right colors.

I gathered up a few coordinating treasures. I forgot I had these colorful Burpee seed mugs tucked in the back of a cupboard. I need to use these this summer, they are perfect for the season. Picked a handful of bachelor buttons (or cornflowers as the farmers here call them)

One of my favorite display pieces is this old wood flat. Fun to just tuck in what I can find. Goes well with the wispy pink baby's breath, alyssum and brachycome daisies.

I went to the back shed and found this old window that I have used in a number of places mainly the back patio or on my back fence, and thought-why not? So here it is above the bench. I had some vintage looking flag fabric in my stash and simply gathered it up to dress the window a bit.

just throwing in a close up on my up-cycled chair I did a couple years ago. The brachycome flowers are planted in a hard hat that I punched holes into for drainage.

all set to kick off my shoes and watch the fireworks from the porch!

Happy 4th of July to all my bloggie friends!

05 October 2013

Fall on the front porch

The best part of the season, is that my dark red house really does lend itself to fall colors. I will be honest that I am not a big fan of Autumn (as I have stated that in my past blog posts). Autumn signals a long rainy winter here in Oregon with little sun. But when my flowers are tired, I really do embrace the season. Plus my porch really does look bare.

I was starting to wonder if I was ever going to be able to decorate my porch for fall. We had an outstandingly beautiful summer her in the Pacific Northwest. Usually we gracefully transition into fall with September still summer dry, but not this September. We had 2 big rainstorms dumping EIGHT inches of rain! Normal is just a half inch of rain for the entire month. Needless to say, it was a mess cleaning up my summer porch garden.

Once that icky weather moved on, we were treated to some beautiful Indian summer sun and 75f. Today I brought out the fall decor. I must admit that this current fall display will only be fully functional until the next rain and wind event comes along. While my south facing front porch is tranquil and relaxing in the summer and early fall, it becomes a nasty windy place to be in the late fall and winter. Our inclement weather blows in from the southwest. I learned quickly the first year we lived in this house, that anything that wasn't anchored, would be blown into the field across the road.

The Squirrel Haven Nut Farm sign

~long story~

but a sign I had at another house we lived at several years ago and a not so nice neighbor.

It always gave us a chuckle, and still does :)

Just before sunset, the colors are amazing!

22 July 2013

Summer on the front porch

Over at Etsy Cottage Style, I joined in on a creativity challenge that was to create an "outdoor space" be it for dining or relaxing. Since we spend most of our outdoor time on our backyard patio were I have always focused my decorating, I decided to focus on our large front porch. It does have seating, and we have a beautiful view of farmland and mountains, but I have really neglected it the last few years. I needed this challenge to make it a lovely place for evening relaxing with a glass of wine.

Many of you follow my blog know I have been obsessed this summer with apple green. But I do love the combo of yellow and blue too. I already had a lot of yellow going on here so decided adding blue would be inviting in my dark red porch.

As you know, I am a believer in "use what you have", so there is nothing here I went out and bought. The yellow chippy plant stand serves a coffee table. It was a cheap estate sale find that I spray painted and distressed. That cover on the bench is just and old round table cloth I threw over the bottom cushions.

Love this rusty kitchen scale I found at an estate sale this weekend! I actually sanded some of the rust off to smooth it out. The yellow star vase was part of the Bauer pottery set that belonged to my grandmother. An old mason jar full of cornflowers is the perfect country blue.

A jelly jar of yellow coreopsis is just the sweetest!

A bit wider view of my updated seating area. I drug the hubs out here to see what I had done, he actually was impressed, his comment was we should sit out here this evening since it is so nice. Now I am impressed because most of the time he really thinks all my fussing around is a waste of time, but he knows I enjoy it LOL.

I planted huge baskets this summer so they would look good thru the end of September. These are only half full, image how big they will be in a month!

Sharing what we see from our porch, the pics do not do it justice. Below, we had a new full moon last night. It made the porch makeover extra special!