Hi All! It's Week 3 of the One Room Challenge, and lots of work has been happening with our Front Porch and Garden project...you just can't see much of it outside our house right now.
On the garden front, my love has been picking away (literally) with a pick ax, slowly trying to break up and remove the three large patches of elephant grass rhizome roots. While elephant grass looked amazing in the garden it is evasive and killed the surrounding plants. If you've ever seen the roots, they are tightly wound to each other and are as hard as cement. It has been back breaking work, and he's been hacking away at them in 20 minute chunks. His goal it to work through it all by the end of the weekend. So a big thank you for him doing it, and I owe him lots of back massages!
This is a pic of PART of one grass root mining expedition...and the large piece in my hand is huge and was so heavy! So as far as the gardening portion we can hopefully move to top soil next week.
On the privacy screen front, I have been busy in my spare time googling and watching LOTS of YouTube videos to figure out the best way to build and design it. We have some site condition obstacles that need to be considered, with the biggest being the remaining yew tree roots. Even though I got a landscaper to cut them down as low as possible with a chainsaw, they are still problematic for digging post holes in the spots we need them. It got me looking at other options, and we are now going to bolt the privacy screen posts to the front face of the concrete porch. We are still a bit nervous drilling into the concrete, but as long as we go 4" in from any edge we shouldn't have any concrete breakage (according to what I read online). It sounds like it is a pretty good option, however it affects the design I was considering, so I spent some time pondering how to detail it for a bit.
So yesterday I went back to the drawing board to finalize the details for the material list...or in this case my computer drafting program. Initially I thought I needed to make it more detailed since we were now building it from scratch, but went to my general design philosophy (K.I.S.S) And it is going to suit my purpose and look good, so that's all that matters! And really, simpler is honestly better for us at this point so we can actually get it built and move on to ALL of the other parts of this project!
I also wanted to visualize a couple of fence board pattern options and see which one I like the best. They are pretty similar, but if I need to put together my lumber order, I need to decide one way or another!
Here's an elevation so you can see for yourself :) They are both using pressure treat 1x6's and 1x2's for the horizontal slats. It's just the pattern that is slightly different.
On the left it is showing a 6 and 2 starting from the top and then alternating two 6's with one 2 down. And on the right is showing a simpler alternating pattern of single 6's and 2's.
What would you pick?
Spoilers....I've decided on the one on the left! Why, you ask? For a couple of reasons - I like that it is a bit different than a straight 1-1 alternating. I also like that it makes for a bit more coverage when it goes down in front of the porch face. You can also notice in the elevation that since the posts are attached to the porch and have to be set in a bit (to avoid the porch breaking off in chunks), we will be extending the horizontal slats past the posts. This is what forced me to revise my original concept with a side frame and contemplating a cap board, since it just no longer works.
I also spent a good chunk of time while it was raining on Sunday googling about stain versus paint for fences. And I'm also going to ask my expert friends at my local paint store as well. But from what I've read so far painting seems to be most durable and the look I'm after. If anyone has some experience or expertise on this, please comment below! I also have to find out if I have to WAIT for the wood to dry out more before painting...which would potentially affect the finishing of the black for the final ORC reveal, so I will find out more about that! And again, if anyone has some knowledge on that, please let me know by commenting below.
And what's happening with the pretty furnishing and decor stuff, you ask? I just got notified by Wayfair that the shutters will hopefully be delivered by June 11th...fingers crossed there aren't any further delays. I have the area rug though, and it arrived super early! So you just never know! One of the final pieces for a space, and it's the first thing I can check off the list...haha. Let me remind you what it looks like...
But isn't it a great rug?
Add to it two side chairs that we got as part of our wedding present from my Mom, and painting an old Ikea metal table the same jade green as the front door (not exactly as shown below) and it's starting to look like a sweet sitting spot!
I want to add an ottoman or lower small coffee table in front, but I'm not sure quite what yet. It's hard when we can't shop at thrift stores or Winners/Homesense. I do have a vintage wood slice table I found on Kijiji and had out there a couple of years ago. But there was a crack, and since it is completely exposed to weather and sun it split open and the original varathane bubbled. Here is a pic from 2 years ago with it in it...
I still love the look of it, so I think I will sand it and see what how it goes. If I can save it and give it a fresh makeover that would be amazing. Maybe partially dip the legs in white? What do you think?
If you look at the photo above you can also see I have the ORIGINAL concrete porch planters. They weigh a ton and one has a crack so I'm nervous to move it and have it not break. I was originally thinking of leaving them and adding this planter for the modern touch and contrast of finishes and height.
Pretty cool, right? I'm now needing to sort out the details for a planter for the far side of the porch. Originally I was thinking of building similar to this photo below to match the styling of the privacy screen:
But while I was googling how to build the fence I came across THIS on HGTV.com (credit Sam Henderson).
LOVE IT! So I'm thinking this is my new plan...It gives extra seating or surface space for pretty stuff, and has a great modern look. What do you think? If I put it the entire width of the porch (which I think is ideal) then I probably don't have room for the concrete planters. Hopefully I can incorporate them somewhere else on the property, since at this point they are just part of the house! And I would put the white and gold stand planter on the stair corner beside the chair to get a pop of the white and gold against the black fence. Yesssss...
So all I have left to do is ponder the accent decor for when the stores start opening up more, come up with ideas to mount some small plants on the inside of the privacy screen, research and decide on the garden plant situation, source and order large modern house numbers to add to the front of the privacy screen, order all of my lumber, build the screen, finalize the wood planter box and garbage screen partition....oh, and a million other things!
So I better get back to it! What do you think so far? I'd love to hear what you think, and thanks so much for following along!
Your Designer, and Modern Boho Mom,
Ramee
xo