Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Outdoor Fabric & Porch Progress

Now that the weather in New England is hot and sunny, we're spending a lot of time outside.  Since my skintone falls in the pink to very pink spectrum, I try to be in the shade when outside (unless I'm slathering on the SPF 75).  Luckily, we have a big covered porch out back.  Making this area useable was actually one of my 12 Homey Goals of 2012 - to make an "outdoor living room".

Here's what we started with (photo from December):


We are about halfway to an outdoor living room at this point - we picked up a wicker loveseat and two chairs from CraigsList.  It included pillows in a gross, brown pattern.  I immediately hit up Fabric.com and searched for outdoor fabric patterns.  They had a lot of great patterns, but I found this bright teal geometric fabric and made envelope style pillows...



Colorful update with comfy seating... a great start!  Next we need a table for drinks and the days I choose to work from the back porch.  I am also thinking about hanging up a curtain behind the loveseat to cover up that ugly steel box (which is the exhaust for the fireplace in our bedroom) and to give the area a more cabana-y feel.  I need to get on that in the next few weeks before the leaves start changing and it starts getting cooler.  Can anybody else believe it's August already? 

5 comments:

  1. The fabric is so cute! I am going to do the outdoor curtains too as a screen from the houses next door. When you do outdoor pillows, what kind of inserts do you use? Mine are going outside by the pool and regular pillow inserts will mildew. I've tried the cushion material made for outside but it's "boxy" and not very comfortable.

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    1. Mine are feather with some sort of plasticky cover on them. They don't seem to have a brand name.

      This may be a little out there, but maybe you could get feather pillows (cheap, from Ikea) and use those super big zip-lock bags around them (folding in the sides where needed) and then put your cover on. That should keep mildew out AND prevent stains of the pillow itself!

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    2. Oh yeah!! Thanks for the info - it's been baffling me for a while!

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  2. Instead of a curtain, how about a room divider? I'm thinking fire safety, exhausts can get kinda hot, and a room divider wouldn't blow onto the exhaust but a curtain would. Something to think about :) Love the pillows!

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    1. Good idea!! I really like how that would look. And I REALLY should have mentioned - we do NOT use the fireplace in the summer (we actually haven't used it once since we moved in) and the curtain would be a temporary thing that would be packed away with the summer stuff. Safety first :)

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