{Porch Makeover} Before Picture + Plans

With the summer months arriving and our downstairs flooring project behind us (reveals coming soon!), we're now moving onto our next project which just so happens to be our back porch. When we purchased our home five years ago, we fell in love with our back yard and our large two story deck. We talked about all of the parties we'd host on this porch, the meals we'd eat together here, and all the memories we'd make. But our hopes and dreams were quickly put on hold as most first homeowners' dreams often are; because the reality of what we wanted to do and the reality of what we could afford just didn't mix.

After quickly assessing our home, we discovered there were other rooms that needed more attention than our patio that would only be used seasonally. So five years later, here our porch sits with just a grill and our lonely four person patio table. Might I add, that rug is long gone but this is seriously the only picture I have of our porch. But now that we've nearly renovated our entire home, it's time our porch had it's chance and we couldn't be more excited to start making it over within the next few weeks.

Several months ago,  I mentioned to Kevin that I wanted to get a conversation set for our patio. We have a large upper deck that measures right at 20' long by 12' wide so we have plenty of room to keep our current table but add additional seating. So last week as I was browsing Target's website, I happened to see most of their patio furniture had been reduced 25% off. To top it off, there was an additional 10% off coupon for all patio furniture and accessories purchases. Thanks to a Target gift card I had as well as a 15% off coupon on an entire purchase, I ended up grabbing up this Threshold Rolston sofa, accent table, and 2 club chair pack for almost half it's usual price. That's bargain shopping at it's finest friends. If bargain shopping were an Olympic sport, I might just be able to go for the gold (; 

After ordering my furniture and getting it set up on my porch (yes, it arrived Monday! Target can get some orders out asap), I've finally decided on the look I'm going for for our space and I thought it would be fun to show you ladies my ideas. So without further ado, here's the little inspiration board I made. 

Since we weren't in the market for a new outdoor dining table set since we've barely used our current one, I knew I wanted to incorporate green into our conversation area to coordinate the two spaces. To tie in the colors of both spaces, I'll be using the square navy and white pillows and the square green and navy pillows on our couch as well as tossing a couple of the navy pillows on the chairs. The navy arrow rug will go in the conversation area. To help tie it in with the dining area, I'll be replacing our current pillows at our table with the navy lumbar pillows that have the same arrow pattern as the rug in the conversation area. I'm hoping with these accents, the navy and green colors will balance well and will look okay in both spaces.

To add additional lighting to our back porch, we'll be hanging string lights on our porch railings and I'll be adding some tiki torches to our banisters.  I'll also be tossing in a few of these glass rope and galvanized lanterns here and there throughout the space to offer some low lighting. 

Instead of a traditional outdoor coffee table, we decided to purchase a long fire table that could serve as both a table and a fire pit. Unfortunately, the one in the picture is currently out of stock but we've been checking every day for it to be restocked so we can move forward with purchasing it.  When it's purchased, I'll be making a wooden top for it so it'll serve as a table then we'll remove the top when we want to use the firepit. 

What do you think?!