Budget Porch Makeover

I never knew it, but I am TOTALLY a porch person, y’all! Our new house has this lovely porch on the back looking out over the yard. It hadn’t occurred to me as a ‘space’ until we moved in and, well… duh, I stuck some furniture out there and realized it all needed to come together. Turns out pulling a porch together is like a super fun mini room makeover!!

Porch Makeover on a Budget

Whenever I have a whole space to consider, I start on Pinterest. (Follow me here if you have an account!) I browse and get a sense for what color combinations I like and any other themes that jump out at me; think textures, materials, etc. And then I assess what pieces of furniture and accessories I need.

For our porch, I had a loveseat (picked up for $70 while working on the restaurant redesign), a rattan chair I’ve been sitting on for a while, an indoor/ outdoor carpet, and $20 at the Restore got me the coffee table. That was it. Which meant it was time to get creative with furnishing the space! My favorite type of design challenge…  Obviously this is how it looked BEFORE.

And… AFTER!

I had some rattan tables from the old house that didn’t fit anywhere at this new house… Cost= free. Originally I was going to use some more of my Modern Masters metallic paint for the top of the coffee table, but I actually liked how the lighter colored echoed the rattan chairs and kept the whole porch feeling light and airy.

Another $40 on Craigslist and I had another bamboo chair/ table combo.

The final touch was this $10 ottoman.  For those of you doing the math, I’ve spent $140 on a porch full of furniture. But… it all needed to come together.  Color and fabric did the trick!

I love the serene blue of the rug and wanted to work with that.  The floor of the porch is colored and off white… painting that wasn’t on my budget list. I was worried white furniture would make the floor seem inordinately dirty… gray seemed a little drab… so I just drove on over to Home Depot to see what I was dealing with.  Bam: this LEAPT into my overjoyed little shopping cart. The perfect blue. Not too bright, not too blue, not too pale… perfection. Rustoleum’s Universal Robin’s Egg Blue in matte (affiliate).  I was worried about the matte finish and actually bought some gloss spray, but… as you can see, the matte grew on me.   The loveseat and bamboo table got the spray paint treatment.  Just to help preserve the finish, I gave the rattan chair a coat of this spray polyurethane (affiliate).

Fabric.  I looked around for a bit and then landed on this awesome outdoor fabric that is actually the same ikat as the pair of chairs I recovered for our family room.  It’s SOOOOOOO pretty!!  I reupholstered the cane chair seat with it and then made a new cushion for the ottoman.

The throw pillows are from Target (mine is no longer available…). Never met a scallop print I didn’t like!

Other accessories? The lanterns were a birthday gift from my mom and are from Terrain (affiliate).  I grabbed the gold planter from Anthropologie but it’s no longer available.

The blanket and hanging driftwood chain were both from Homegoods, but are similar to this blanket and this chain found elsewhere (affiliate).

Flea market mirror for the win. I assumed I’d paint it some bright color for Eleanor’s new room, but it’s too perfect NOT to hang out here to brighten up the joint. (Similar one here.)

You didn’t think I was going to let you leave without admiring my $10 elephant table from the flea market did you?  He’s missing tusks, but a coat of glossy white spray paint and he’s looking brighter already!

All in, this porch cost $270. Granted, that doesn’t include a few things that we already owned, but… repurposing and ‘shopping the house’ are a DIY Blogger’s bread and butter.  Also.. there’s no *need* for the accessories… they make the pictures look pretty. So… hopefully this porch makeover will give you some ideas about ways to decorate a cohesive space on a dime. Nothing a little color and texture and fabric can’t bring together!!