I finally decided to tackle our screened in porch over the past several weeks. It's hard to imagine we have been living in our house 9 years and we never even considered what we could turn this little hideaway into.

I decided on the color scheme of gray deck surface and white trim, and then got to work picking out the paint. For the deck surface, I chose Sherwin Williams Deckscapes acrylic solid color deck stain in color "Kings Canyon. A beautiful smoky gray color. I have used Valspar exterior paint, we purchased at Lowes Home Improvement, on several other projects, so I decided to use that brand in white for the trim.

Once painting was complete, I decided that the screens would all need replacing because they resembled sails of a ship at this point. I found a really cool article on the "This Old House" website here. They show how to use the screen tight system to install replacement screens. Let me say, I had no experience doing screen replacement before. And with the exception of a few pieces in the middle I couldn't reach (I made my husband come help me), I managed to install this entire system myself. The fact that it is a vinyl enclosure system sold me on this product. And... it went up beautifully and relatively easy. In our case, the worst part was removing the old wood that held the screen installed when our house was built.

The furniture we purchased through Amazon.com with free delivery. The beautiful rug came from Overstock.com.

When it came to the lights, I ran into a dilemma. I wanted beautiful soft light but outdoor lights were super expensive. I found an article (through the miracle of pinterest) on Lowe's Home Improvement's do it yourself section that showed how to turn tomato cages into light fixtures. That article is here. I must say, this was a little time consuming, but the result was perfect for our porch!

I am also making a cool wood sign out of scrap wood for the wall on the porch, more on that process later once I get it finished. I am so excited to use this beautiful space this fall when the weather finally stays cool enough to enjoy it here in NC. More pictures of the finished porch I'll add later this week.