Now, I don’t know for sure… but right now, I’m not really digging the pale yucky yellow stained wall look for the screen porch. We want it to be nice and fresh and clean looking. We know that we need to replace most of the screening and that will take a little longer, but for right now, in the inside, it was really getting ready for a quick makeover!

So when Jan called and said, I want to come and help with something at the farm… we knew just what would be a nice fun afternoon job and managed to through in our first BBQ and yard bonfire too! SO FUN!

We had leftover blue from the big office and some nice crisp white. Sounded perfect! So off we started!

Most definately we are going to replace these screen doors… it’s just that we have 3 to do and they are about $30 each for a nice door that we found at Lowes. So it’s on the BUY list and in the meanwhile, Jessy did quite the little homeschool art project with two of them and duct tape.

She is scared of birds and was determined to keep that momma robin out of the porch!

I think they have a sort of modern art look, myself! haha…

And you can see, the curtain wall around the place is a sort of yucky battleship green. And just well, dirty and ucky.

We swept and cleaned up good and got it all ready. And then started to paint! And cook!

We had a fairly nice little gas grill, but the regulator valve broke on it! And I’ve been checking at the local hardware stores and they all tell me, sorry, that model is not repairable. Isn’t that a drag? It’s a stainless steel table top model. I haven’t totally given up, but I’m getting to the point that we may have to hit Craigslist for another gas grill. In the meanwhile, we got this cute little table top grill for charcoal and I love it! I totally overestimated the quantity of briquets I needed for a couple of hot dogs, but still, it was really nice to use and gosh, those dogs were so perfect! I seemed to think that the charcoal would take forever, but in reality, it was ready in about 10 or 15 minutes.

We found about 6 strands of little blue Christmas lights and they were perfect to string up around the top of the porch. There were already perfect little hooks and nails for them. It was just so lovely to sit in there! Luna came at one point and lept up on the little edge around the porch and got her feet all white! Of course, she proceeded to jump down and at her own little artwork to the whole porch floor! Haha… good thing we haven’t painted the floor yet! I’m pretty sure some lazy summer day project will be the floor and a faux painted rug in the middle!!! What fun!

Right now, as you can see by the little bits of cardboard here and there… we need to replace the outside screen. We’d like to take it all down, scrape the frame and paint it and then re-screen. But that’s probably a little way off. It’s on the list for this year, but it might be another few weeks for sure. We have a nice patio table for in there, and a couple plastic chairs. We’re going to be looking at garage sales for sure for some more suitable chairs and maybe a swing or something. I would just love to have an old porch swing out there for those lazy summer nights!

I definately need to get a little better photos for the whole effect, and of course, we need to tidy it up a bit! We got done and it was kind of dark, so we just sort of left it a bit of a mess so we could go out and sit by the lovely campfire that Maggie had made for us. She worked most of the afternoon finding cement blocks all over the property and carting them in with her trusty wagon to design a lovely big fire pit! And then carted in some dry dead wood and limbs for the fire. It was so magical! We ate banana cream pie and laughed and warmed our toes by the fire. I can see that I really need to stock up on marshmallows… we have the sticks, aplenty!

And I think I’m going to take Linda’s suggestion and look into canvas drop cloths as curtains for the inside! We’ve noticed that when it rains or is very windy, it would be nice to be able to draw some sturdy curtain in on either side, and to also make a nice little cozy private area if we wanted. I was looking at Lowes and sure enough, you can get big nice canvas cloths in various sizes for really very little. I think the largest one was only $19. And it was huge! They have some in different sizes too, so I think it would work nicely. I need to measure the space and then see what might work. I have a little grommet kit… I was thinking you could just put grommets in the top, and use a tight wire to string through and hang up. Easy to move back and forth and all. Definately on my radar for a good possible idea!

Well… that was Wednesday night! Things are moving ahead here at the farm, we’re trying to get into a schedule and get some work done so that we can make more money for our projects! We got a little frig… yeah… and Jessy has finally got her textured primer so she might be able to see a light at the end of her room tunnel soon! Poor kid… she’s trying to stay upbeat but I know she really wants her room to be done soon!

And of course, we got our little kitty!

Not sure, but I really really want to go to the livestock auction tomorrow… but it’s supposed to be all nasty and raining. Not sure I want to do that in the rain and all. Just going to see how the mood hits me tomorrow. I have most of my stuff for the chickens. Pine shavings for their barn floor, a feeder and water… still have to build a roost and some nest boxes. And get some feed. The feed store in town has a buy 2 get one bag free sale, so that sounds good. I SURE SURE do want to get some hens… I really do. We’ll see!