The Summer Porch

Hi everyone!  It's been a minute, hasn't it?  I can't believe I went almost two months without writing a post.  I have truly been getting some things accomplished around here, so I finally feel like I can take a little break.  In addition, we went to the beach again in the third week of May and spent some time there with our son.  The weather wasn't good, but we still had fun.      This summer, I've been planting flowers in much of my free time.  I'm slowly adding perennials in our natural area, and I'm starting to see such a difference in that section of our yard.  We have a mature maple tree there, and we planted two limelight hydrangeas about three years ago.  They bloomed nicely last summer, and they're full of blooms starting to open this year.  We also have azaleas and Lenten roses there.  This year I've planted several more things, and I'll tell you all about them in another post.  Right now, I'm going to share the flowers on our front porch and in front of our house.     

Bringing Up The Babies

Today was actually a really nice day for me.  The weather was beautiful, albeit a little warm for April.  I got a lot done, including photos for this post, and I got Wordle in three guesses today.  Woohoo!!  😀    

   

Working on Curb Appeal

We've been working on improving curb appeal here at the homestead.  Our house is 42 years old this year; it's a child of the 70's.  :)  Now that we've gotten our son through college, we're focusing on making some improvements to our home.  Fortunately, we were able to have our kitchen renovated two summers ago -- what a difference that made!  Duncan is just about fully house-broken, so we're going to replace the carpet in our den and hallway after Christmas.

Currently though, we've been focusing on sprucing things up outside.  I thought I'd show you a comparison of our front porch and surrounding landscape from last winter versus now.  It's not a huge change, but it does look much better.

The New Decorating/Design Book

Hi everyone!  In Monday's post about our living room, I showed you a glimpse of the two new decorating books I got for Christmas.  The book I want to share with you today is called "THE GREAT AMERICAN HOUSE, Tradition For The Way We Live Now," by Gil Schafer, III.  This is the first time I've been exposed to Mr. Schafer's work, but based on the houses in this book, I would say that Gil Schafer, III, is an architect extraordinaire.

"THE GREAT AMERICAN HOUSE" features a forward by interior designer, Bunny Williams.  It's a 255-page hardback, coffee-table style book, that's chock full of information and beautiful photos.