Snazzing up the Front Porch

We've pretty much ignored our front porch since Mr. B, his brother and his dad hung our porch swing the weekend we moved in. Since the two people who actually live in the house come and go via the garage in the back, we were going the Kardashian route and focusing on our rear.

But now that we're not the poor neighbors with sinking steps who got screwed by the warranty, we're taking more pride in how we look from the front.

So, in a quest not to be an epic failure at my goals for the 3rd month in a row, it was time to tackle the front porch. And while I can appreciate the irony of Home Depot and Better Homes and Gardens choosing bloggers who actually make money off of their blogs to give $500+ to for porch projects, we had to snazz things up on a strict "the economy ain't so hot, people" budget. Oh, apparently I didn't check snarky at the door when returning from my blog break. My apologies, I'll try harder.


So, I mocked up some ideas for our gray and blue cottage and started tackling the projects, beginning with the doormat.


Here's our former faded doormat. It used to have flip flops on it. The flip flops faded and the mat was looking a little dilapidated. So, I needed a new doormat, but didn't like any of the cheesy ones at my usual big box stores of choice. And I definitely wasn't going to be ordering a pricey custom mat. But, I wanted it to be personalized, so I decided to make my own. When choosing what our personalized doormat would say, I considered several options:

Welcome!
Please leave perfection and unsolicited advice here.


No Soliciting
Unless you're here to talk cookies.

and

Red Sox Fans Need Not Enter.


But, in the end, I decided to follow Martha's lead and Martha doesn't make political statements at her doorstep. So, we went with house numbers - neutral and unoffensive. Just call me Switzerland.

I bought the masking tape. I printed out the numbers on cardstock. I sprayed the entire thing Navy blue, then taped off the parts and pinned down the numbers where I wanted things to stay navy and sprayed khaki paint until my head was fuzzy. And here's the finished product:


Here's the mat as it was still drying (unevenly). Please Note: This project is best tackled when your Engineer husband is out of the house. They will appreciate the finished product, but the lack of methodicalness (and sense) in your plan will drive them batty.


From faded and run down to a little bit snazzy for $7 worth of spray paint and $3 of masking tape. In the future I would work harder to track down a plain coir mat (which, for the record, would reverse the colors - making the stripes and numbers coir colored and the rest of the mat your color of choice) - spray painting over the faded mat was a bit tedious and - get this - imperfect.

I think this project would be great for the front stoop of a town home or other attached housing where people often mix up which house is which. Not that I've ever done that. Nope, I'm definitely not speaking from showing up with pizza and wine at the wrong person's condo experience. Not me.