Front Patty-Ooohhh!

Well, I have a fabulous front patio makeover I want to share but alas, I managed to upload all of my pics BACKWARDS with all the "After" pics listed first and the "Before" pics last.  If you can get past this slight mishap, I feel you will enjoy my simple...and CHEAP...front patio makeover of The Triple P!  Please note that a few pics have a little "spook" making her way through the yard.  That would be Sissy Dianne Parnell, my weenie dog side-kick for the last 13 years.

 

Here is the final "After".  We painted the trim, framed out the windows and updated some decor we already had.  We spent $ on the pretty red flowers in the hanging basket we already had and we bought the Jack Daniels whiskey barrel at Atwoods on sale for $24.  We spent a little $ on the soil and sweet potato vine we planted inside of it.  The flowers and the black windmill in the side flower bed were leftover from last fall.  Our mild winter made for light work in our flower bed this spring!  Finally, the large star on the front of the house was something a friend gave me and it used to be red.  I was going to hang it in my son's room but after a coat of black paint, it only made sense to hang it on the front of our little plantation!  Proceed for the rest of the juicy details!

 

Here are the previously unframed windows.  The new frames were made using simple 1x4 pieces of wood.  My Sexyman just cut them, painted them and hung them with masonry screws.  We saw a pic in a "Country Sampler" magazine of windows given a more country or primitive feel by letting the top board in the frame hang over the side wood.  We liked it  in the magazine and we like it on our house!

This is the only pic I have of what the window looked like pre-framing.

When I bought these barn stars about 8 years ago, they were a deep red.  After hanging on the patio for so long and being rained on and beat by the sun, they were really faded.

I used a can of black spray paint I already had in our garage to give them a fresh look.  Wow!  they look brand new and this part of the makeover was F-R-E-E!

This is another F-R-E-E upgrade!  This sign was already hanging on the patio so I took it down, spray painted it with the same black spray paint and made a stencil with my Cricut and then hand painted the words using white acrylic paint I already had!  I think the font and the saying go great with  our "cowboy" theme.  Plus...it is true...JESUS LOVES Y'ALL!

Here is a pic of the old sign.

This cool pillow I made for the bench for freakin' free, y'all!!!  I cut out two pieces of foam I had left over from another project; I put a large rock between the two pieces to make it heavy enough to not blow away; I wrapped it like a piece of candy with some left over burlap from another project and hot glued it to the foam; I used some twine...yep, left over from another project...and tied the ends.  before I did all that, I made another stencil with my Cricut to look sort of like a monogram of The Triple P and the year we were married.  I used some leftover black acrylic paint to paint the stencil on the burlap.

This was another FREE upgrade!  This sign was already hanging on our patio.  I had bought this cute thing with the barn wood frame several years ago at a big craft fair we have at our state fairgrounds called "An Affair of the Heart".  It was really cute until it got really faded.  I taped off the frame with painters tape and spray painted it with a can of chalkboard paint I already had.  I did 3 coats.  After the last coat dried, I wrote a nice cowboy welcome with some white chalk!

Here is the sign before the re-do!

 

Here is where I spent some $$$.  I bought the awesome grapevine wreath at a thrift store for $2.99.  I found the black burlap at Hobby Lobby and after my 40% off coupon, it only cost me $3.60.  I used it to make a bow on the wreath and made the pillow really pop by tying a little on the ends.

 

Here is the sad, sad, sad patio before we decided enough was enough!!!

I am linking up to Met Monday on www.betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com