staycation: the porch makeover

So it was Friday of our post-tax-season staycation (thank you grad school for stealing our vacation money) and we had planned on going to the aquarium when we wandered out onto our storage shed that we like to call a porch (picture was taken mid removal of stuff - i almost forgot to document!).

Now, our porch is FABULOUS, especially in the summer months with the breeze blowing through the screens. However, in the winter, it becomes home to way too much clutter and Ry has been dying to do something about it...so we did. So we quickly removed all objects from the porch to see what we had to work with.

We took some measurements and quickly found out that our porch was on a slant, which would make it difficult to do too much with the limited tools we have (all ry's cool tools are living in VT since there is no room for them here). We drew up plans and then decided we needed a piece to base the room off of. Off to White Elephant we went in search of a window. JACK. POT. We found this beauty...and it was unmarked, which means the guy gave us a decent deal on the thing.

Now we had a theme and could move forward. We decided on building a table/bench type thing to optimize seating (four seats does not cut it during the summer months when we're bbq-ing and ladder balling). So off to home depot we went, grabbed some lumber and came back to start building! What a process, but it was totally worth it.

we love irwin quick grips!

We also remembered that we had picked up a trunk from yard sale (for $15!) that would work perfectly as a coffee table and pair nicely with our rustic window. We're still deciding if we're going to redo the trunk, what do you think? I've included a picture of a trunk that ry has already redone...

So then over the next week we scrambled to finish up the seating as Ry's sister was coming and we wanted to make sure everything was finished up for when she got here. Check out the benches/table all put together:

Defintely not a fan of the wires coming through the windows, but we're trying to figure out a solution for that. Also - i'll be sewing some pilows for the benches. On top of the table are two vases filled with sea glass that match the colors of the window. We also wanted to decorate with lanterns, but they're expensive, so we did this instead:

I'm hoping to find a lantern or two to hang over the trunk that we can use and we've strung up white lights around the perimeter of the porch. It is a hard space to fully capture, but once it's completely done, i'll repost. We still need to stain the benches/table and I need to sew those pillows. I also found this wicked cool piece of driftwood that I'm trying to figure out what to do with - any suggestions?

So there it is...the mostly made over porch. Any suggestions for some final touches would be greatly welcomed. (and thanks to Jen Migonis and the Bayreuther's for their home maker over posts on their blogs for helping to inspire us to get our butts into gear!)