Exciting times!

I am excited to be a guest participant on the One Room Challenge. This is the annual opportunity designers have to fix up a room in their own homes. This bi-annual event was started by Linda Weinstein in 2011. Twenty design influencers/bloggers get chosen and the rest of us can sign up as guests for the event. Read more about it here

What room did I choose?

I chose to do my back porch and part of my back yard for the challenge. Since we have been on lock down I cannot think of a better place to spend my time. We moved into our current home last year in June and I have not really had time to work on my garden. We love our house and the back yard, however I am not crazy about having a lawn except for a space for where our big dog and teenager can play with a ball. Ok I am a little crazy!

What do I want to achieve with this makeover?

I sat down with my husband and we discussed what we actually want to be able to do on our porch. Well actually I told him.

1. We want a place to sit and eat. Our current table is too big and we have never had 8 people sit at the table.
2. We want some comfortable seating.
3. We need a place to barbeque as we love to do that. Where I am from we call that a braai (pronounced “bry”)
4. We want it all to be beautiful!! Who doesn’t? Our Living room has 4 big windows that look out onto the patio and back yard. I want it to be an extension of my ecclectic taste.
5. I want the landscaping to be meaningful in the sense of attracting birds or bees and/or butterflies. That is exactly why part of the lawn needs to go.

What are the challenges?

1. I have 3 Live Oak trees in the back yard. There are roots to deal with and also the part I am redoing is part shade. This can be challenging.
2. I need plants that look beautiful but do not require a lot of maintenance.
3. We live n a rather Stepford-esque subdivision. You might have seen me refer to it as Stepford-on-Steroids. The outside has to fit in with the neighborhood. The 2 walls of our porch are red brick which I can’t paint.
4. I have a rather tight budget.

What we are starting with

What I love

Our back yard is very private.

I love that my back porch is covered. Even on rainy days we are protected on the porch. The roof of the house extends over the porch which leaves me with a really high ceiling.

I love the fig ivy that grows over the back brick fence. I also really like having 3 big trees in the back as it creates shade in the summer, cools the house and attracts birds and squirrels to entertain my dog.

The plan

I want the back porch to be eclectic in the feel and to actually create an outdoor room.

I originally wanted to tile the porch but then I quickly figured out that it would just be prohibitively expensive. So I went to plan B which was a lot more labor intensive – stenciling the concrete to look like Mediterranean tiles. I have come to my senses now and think that I would like to spend the rest of my life being able to get up and walk and that it is just silly to think that I could safely do that and recover! I am going back to tiling the porch.

I want to cover up the red brick columns with fabric. We need a curtain or some sort of covering for the East side since the porch gets sun in the morning. Soon it will be very hot here in Texas. I will have to watch my yard and patio from the inside while lounging in the air conditioning.

I am going to paint the ceiling and the back door in colors. These areas are not visible to any of my neighbors.

I want to add a much smaller dining table and chairs and a lounging area.

The plan is also to landscape a section of the yard between the porch and the trees. There will be 2 flowerbeds. This would mean that we have to also build a walkway to separate the beds.

The execution

Here’s how I plan to do the work so I can be done by week 7.

Week 1: Dig up the grass and build the walkway

Week 2: Plant the plants

Week 3: Paint the ceiling and the back door

Replant/plant in the pots

Week 4: Tile and grout the patio

Week 5: Install the drapes and decorations

Week 6: Final reveal

I hope you will stay with me through my one room makeover!