Beauty Farming Life

In a heavy rain, this is how much of the front porch gets wet.  Not too bad, we can actually sit on the porch in the rain and be dry (mostly).   Farmhouse porch in the rain For those new to the blog, our porch is deep and long.  It's 10 feet deep, and 36 feet wide, along the front of the house.  That means we actually have 360 square feet of outdoor living space!  Or as I like to think, another 360 square feet of decorating space!  We haven't done much on the porch yet, it's something that we won't do until the house is painted and finished outside.  Then, we'll be able to start 'furnishing' the porch. Until then we have the rockers that "Ma" left behind and really, isn't that all you need on a porch, a rocking chair (or two)?

With supposedly just one day of nice weather this weekend, (Sunday ended up staying dry and warm after all) we decided that Saturday would be porch cleaning day at the farm.   Another thing checked off THE LIST  for 2015 projects. We took everything off the porch and put it in the yard.  I hosed it all off and then swept the porch.  Then we stood back to figure out what goes where.   So we had this blank space... Porch blank space ...and a while back, we found this small stand/table on clearance at the local big box hardware store.  It's made for outside use and has tiles that fit in the top.  It actually looks like a sideboard.  There is a rack for wine glasses on the left side and wine bottles on the right and then a large middle shelf.  On the bottom is a bin of some sort, but we're not sure what to use it for.   Hampton Bay outdoor table So I cleaned it all up and we put it in the empty spot... ...

Not sure if we've ever shared this angle of the house.   It's the back, from what is essentially the backyard, near the fig trees.   The two window units are in the windows of each bedroom.  The little window in between them is the bathroom.  On the left side of the picture is the set of stairs that lead off the porch and toward Barnabas (the party/dinner tree) from the front door, and on the right side of the picture, the bump out where the roof slopes down, is the dining room. Back of farmhouse, pier and beam For those not familiar, this house is what's called "pier and beam".  There is no concrete foundation or "slab", instead the house is built up, on "piers" which are the concrete cinder blocks (often bricks are used as well) and across each of those lies a "beam".  It is this beam that the floor of the house sits on.  The upside is that it makes it very easy for working underneath the house, for example moving pipes...