I have my favorite room back!
A few years ago, George built a glorious porch on the back of the house for my b-day. Its one of those marvelous "gifts that keeps on giving" - every spring, and sometimes off and on in the winter, I get to open up my house and have one more room. And what a great room! Its 8'x20' - bigger than my living room - and until last fall the couch lived out there, plus a big slab "coffee table" and some end tables and oddball chairs. I tacked up some masonite along one side for Mo to use as an easel and strung clothesline to dry her artwork above it. Weather permitting, its our "messy project" space, and my lounging around space. Its outside, but sheltered and off the ground. I love it love it loveit!
Sitting on my porch, which is on the back of the house, I can look up through bare branches to my hill-tops in the winter. In the summer the leaves keep it shady and cool. Its on the morning side of the house, so on hot Tennessee evenings we can hang out there and eat dinner and watch the fireflies. There's a good view of the run-off creek and a tiny cleared patch I call the back yard, where I've planted asparagus and daylilies and coneflowers and various annuals.
The porch was full of junk until today.
This was one of the complications of Rayan moving into our very small house. As an every-other-weekend kid he didn't use any of the storage space in his room, so we filled it up with all the kinds of things people "normally" put in attics. The sudden change left us kind of at a loss, so we piled the stuff on the porch, which is reasonably sheltered, until we figured out a better solution.
Over the winter we've been sorting and discarding and consolidating that stuff and the heap formerly known as the dining-room table. We don't have a dining room, but we have my mother's table - a dainty cherry thing with those swoopy cabriolet legs. Heaping it with stuff wasn't optimal, but it kept Mo from climbing on it, along with providing storage. Our new family member meant we needed more "family" space, though, so we dug out the table (moved some of that stuff to the porch). We quickly discovered we didn't like eating at the table, so it went out to the barn and the couch moved in to the suddenly expanded living room. That was a good thing for the winter. Its nice having a larger living room, and we don't miss the heap...er table.
But its spring, gosh darnit! and I wanted my room back. I wanted to lounge on the back porch drinking coffee and watching the birds. It finally occurred to me that we have a whole pile of grey industrial shelving from Smithville's one coffee-shop closing (George knew the owners and got to loot - we got an old organ, lots of shelves and assorted guitar bits). With a little nudging on my part George agreed that the side porch would be a good place to put some shelves, magically creating the storage space we so desperately need. Tada! Last night and this morning he hung shelves and then he and I moved boxes and....stuff. He's on his fourth dump run, now, and I'm taking a break from my cleaning and arranging.
Once the stuff was gone, and everything swept, the lack of couch weighed heavily on me. Where would I lounge to drink coffee? I remembered the leftover lumber from my garden-fencing project. Aha! I foraged up some concrete blocks and cobbled together a rough-n-ready bench. It works. Its wider than my behind - the one significant dimension - so I can sprawl or lounge or curl up, as I choose. Phew. I tested it with a bowl of soup and Morgan cavorted around blowing bubbles and trying to catch them in her mouth.
As far as I'm concerned this is the official first of spring. Forget daffodils - the darn things start coming up in February! Moving out into my favorite room is It! I hearby declare it Spring in Dismal, TN.
A few years ago, George built a glorious porch on the back of the house for my b-day. Its one of those marvelous "gifts that keeps on giving" - every spring, and sometimes off and on in the winter, I get to open up my house and have one more room. And what a great room! Its 8'x20' - bigger than my living room - and until last fall the couch lived out there, plus a big slab "coffee table" and some end tables and oddball chairs. I tacked up some masonite along one side for Mo to use as an easel and strung clothesline to dry her artwork above it. Weather permitting, its our "messy project" space, and my lounging around space. Its outside, but sheltered and off the ground. I love it love it loveit!
Sitting on my porch, which is on the back of the house, I can look up through bare branches to my hill-tops in the winter. In the summer the leaves keep it shady and cool. Its on the morning side of the house, so on hot Tennessee evenings we can hang out there and eat dinner and watch the fireflies. There's a good view of the run-off creek and a tiny cleared patch I call the back yard, where I've planted asparagus and daylilies and coneflowers and various annuals.
The porch was full of junk until today.
This was one of the complications of Rayan moving into our very small house. As an every-other-weekend kid he didn't use any of the storage space in his room, so we filled it up with all the kinds of things people "normally" put in attics. The sudden change left us kind of at a loss, so we piled the stuff on the porch, which is reasonably sheltered, until we figured out a better solution.
Over the winter we've been sorting and discarding and consolidating that stuff and the heap formerly known as the dining-room table. We don't have a dining room, but we have my mother's table - a dainty cherry thing with those swoopy cabriolet legs. Heaping it with stuff wasn't optimal, but it kept Mo from climbing on it, along with providing storage. Our new family member meant we needed more "family" space, though, so we dug out the table (moved some of that stuff to the porch). We quickly discovered we didn't like eating at the table, so it went out to the barn and the couch moved in to the suddenly expanded living room. That was a good thing for the winter. Its nice having a larger living room, and we don't miss the heap...er table.
But its spring, gosh darnit! and I wanted my room back. I wanted to lounge on the back porch drinking coffee and watching the birds. It finally occurred to me that we have a whole pile of grey industrial shelving from Smithville's one coffee-shop closing (George knew the owners and got to loot - we got an old organ, lots of shelves and assorted guitar bits). With a little nudging on my part George agreed that the side porch would be a good place to put some shelves, magically creating the storage space we so desperately need. Tada! Last night and this morning he hung shelves and then he and I moved boxes and....stuff. He's on his fourth dump run, now, and I'm taking a break from my cleaning and arranging.
Once the stuff was gone, and everything swept, the lack of couch weighed heavily on me. Where would I lounge to drink coffee? I remembered the leftover lumber from my garden-fencing project. Aha! I foraged up some concrete blocks and cobbled together a rough-n-ready bench. It works. Its wider than my behind - the one significant dimension - so I can sprawl or lounge or curl up, as I choose. Phew. I tested it with a bowl of soup and Morgan cavorted around blowing bubbles and trying to catch them in her mouth.
As far as I'm concerned this is the official first of spring. Forget daffodils - the darn things start coming up in February! Moving out into my favorite room is It! I hearby declare it Spring in Dismal, TN.
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