turn my porch into a porch again -- not a storage facility

Yeah!! A neighborhood fellow that does odd jobs came by last week and asked if I had anything that needed to be done. Yes I said! I need my porch painted. He showed up Tuesday with paint brush in hand. $35 for 3.5 hours work and I have a lovely dove gray porch again. I put the furniture back on it last night.

I still need to get a tool storage bin so I can put my yard tools somewhere besides the porch. I still need to hang some shelves… but we are getting there! Yeah!

b.

My neighbor’s John and Luke had an entry in the 48 Hour Film Festival a few weeks ago. A couple of weeks before, John called me and asked if they could use my porch for one scene that day…. sure! I said.

I now realize: this means my porch has turned into a porch again!!! I am very happy!!!

I still need to paint the floor – and this is the perfect weather for that – but the rest of the things on the list are done.

Here’s the YouTube link to see the movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEJtLLStXcA

The film won an award for sound. I think my screen door added just the right creak!! ;-)

I was an extra… I am the woman that points at the 4:40 second mark.

(Yes, the bridge in the movie is BridgeFairy’s bridge.)

Enjoy!

b.

...but at least it’s a much better organized storage facility!

One of the “domino” effects of last week’s massive decluttering project was that the genuine junk that was in my solarium got hauled away. What’s out there now is all stuff I want (e.g., off-season clothes, photos, and the like), with one exception – a file cabinet that I’m about to list on Freecycle so that it can go to a good home. (I plan to restrict the papers I keep to a maximum of 4 file drawers, so this cabinet is extraneous.)

Vision for next summer: only shelves out there, plus a pair of lovely Muskoka chairs (called “Adirondack chairs” in the U.S.) and a tiny low table to hold iced tea.

...it’s at best a medium-term possibility.

While I’m working on the rest of the place, the solarium must continue in its current storage role.

The improvement I am making right now is to make more effective use of the space. Stuff that’s ready to go (and has indeed been ready for some time, but too heavy for me to move by myself) is being carted away.

The empty plastic bins and bankers’ boxes are being filled temporarily with, for example, stuff from the surfaces and/or drawers of various pieces of furniture (e.g., my old desk, my big antique dresser, several small chests of drawers) that are either going out or being moved to other rooms. Some of the bins and boxes will ultimately hold items like off-season clothes and the seven years’ worth of financial papers that Canada Revenue requires small-business operators to keep.

Two disassembled shelving units that have been standing against one wall out there for 2-plus years will shortly be reassembled and put to work – the less lovely one will be set up in the solarium itself (to hold bankers’ boxes), and the nicer one will fit beautifully in the dining room (which hasn’t previously had room for it, but which after today will be much rooomier, because most of what’s been living there will be moving into the space cleared in the old office).

Woo-hoo! Calling Rent-a-Son now to organize some strong young bodies to haul furniture to the curb and/or from room to room.

I’ve struggled with clutter for years. Have made huge strides in the past couple of years, after some stuttering “baby steps” in the previous, um, decade or so. A number of items on my current 43Things list involve decluttering.

It’s so great to read over your entries and see your progress! I don’t have a porch, exactly (I live in a third-floor apartment), but I do have a “solarium” or “sun porch.”

Haven’t been able to use it for its intended purpose since I moved in (February 2005). I might not be able to make it useable before the end of this summer—other rooms are higher on my priority list. But I think it’s quite reasonable to aim for being able to use it by summer 2008.

Congratulations again, and thanks for sharing your journey!

I bought new porch furniture last night! The home improvement place had wicker 1/2 off—then 30% off of that sale. I got $900 worth of furniture for $400: 2 love seats, 4 chairs, 2 tables. It was a splurge but worth it!

I also got the brackets for the plant shelves.

I have to paint the porch floor still and hang the shelves and “make it pretty” with pillows and candles, etc. I need a design consult from the neighbors as to what color to use on the floor…. The new furniture is brown wicker. I was planning on white with my original color scheme… I may need to rethink the design plan.

yea! All the junk is off my porch and new chairs and settees are in their place!!!

This goal is almost done!

The clutter is gone! Time to clean as soon as we have a warm day!

I have the decorating scheme in my head:

dark gray floor (called “black ink”)
grass green front door
white chairs
black and white toile cushions
white w/ black crackle glazed tables
maybe 2-3 canvas toss pillows in orange
copper planters
green plants

The house is pale gray w/white trim.

The living room has a grass green accent wall and pine floors – to coorespond to the orange and green accents outside.

The mystery Rubbermaid bin is gone. It had some tools and a garden sprayer in it – they have been put away. The entire porch has been swept. A chair with a broken out cane seat is gone. (The 1000 pieces of broken canery prompted the sweeping.)

The cat’s table has been moved next to the wall to give them some warmth and protection from the winter winds. They have a cat door, but they like to sit out on the porch even in winter. I washed all their bed covers and the dogs bed.

I still have shutters to take down and the file crate to go through. I realized today (cold, rainy 50 degrees) I probably will not get the painting done before it gets too cold. But I can get every thing else done.

Here’s my list:

-Get rid of last few misc. items: crate, a decommissioned litter box, 1/4 box of really old papers (2 hours of sorting). --Put the clean covers on cats’ and dog’s bed --Scrub porch floor-
-Paint porch floor-
Paint door, -steps and railing-
Put up acrylic panels for winter
-Take down faux shutters on front windows and take to recycling center-
Mount 2 shelves for plants
Buy and install new light fixture
(Get timer or motion detector light so it will be on when I get home.)
-Get 2 new rocking chairs- (wicker furniture instead)
-Get 1 end table- (small table once in bedroom has been repainted)
paint small table reclaimed from living room

And maybe:

Mount styrofoam panel insulation in ceiling to capture some solar heat in winter
-Install outdoor speakers- (not going to do)

That’s it!

The porch is already looking lots better! Just a bit more to go!

The porch is 22 feet wide but only 66 inches deep. My front door in the middle of this 22 feet so there is about 9 feet on either side of the door for chairs, table, rockers, etc. It is screened in. But I have used it more for a storage facility than a porch since it was screened in. I am aiming to change that.

I have been looking at it for a couple of weeks – trying to figure out why the porch has not been working very well as a porch.

Duh! Before the porch was screened in, the swing was at the very very end of the porch – hanging on the end beams. But it is a different story now.

Now, the swing has to be contained inside the porch and not hit the back wall (and it can’t go in front of a window), so it gets pulled in about 3 feet from the end of the porch. It is 3 feet deep – so that leaves only 3 feet beside the door for a table or a chair. Whatever is there, the swing can still hit it.

The porch is too narrow to go around the swing anywhere near gracefully. It is a very tight squeeze. So it is not a good place to even put the gardening tools or other things I may want to keep on the porch – like a bakers rack for some plants – or a planter stand with a mini-fountain.

So, as much as I enjoy sitting on the swing and watching the world go by with a glass of tea – I think rockers are a better idea.

So – to get started – I gave my swing to a neighbor with a new wider porch last week. It is a nice cedar swing – I am sure she will spend many nice hours in it.

Also dispensed with: Two crates contained mushroom lights for the yard and sprinkler system parts. I transferred them to Rubbermaid bins and stored them under the deck with my potting supplies.

Yesterday I got some catering supplies put away that someone had borrowed and dropped off when I was’t home.

A friend is making me a daybed frame out of plywood for my soon to be new den. (I am re-uphosltering his dining room chairs in exchange.) I realized yesterday that maybe I could have the back made so it is a storage facility for 5 card tables I own. (I do catering and have big parties… one can never have enough card tables… but what do you do with them when the party is over?)

There is one mystery Rubbermaid bin out there – can’t remember what is in it. I am tackling it tonight.

I have 1 crate of old files to go through – and 1/4 of a box of papers. (The box was full so I have been working on it.) Papers are such time sinks. I do not know when I will get to them. Or what I will do with the files if I need to keep them. I am thinking of getting a scanner and just scanning important documents… but again that is a time sink. I can’t even get my CD covers and books out of jewel boxes to a notebook… or all my photos into photo albums – so scanning is not a near term solution. I’ll keep thinking on it. And working on all the papers a little at a time.

As soon as I get the stuff off the porch, I get to scrub the floor good and paint it. Once I get that done I can buy some furniture – but not much. I don’t want it just crowded back up again. I need new steps too – but that might be another project.

Oh! One quick project is to take the fake plastic shutters off the front windows. I have 2 of them down already. Two to go.

This project is going to be good for my soul!