Our “Always A Work In Progress” Outdoor Room

One of my favorite spaces in our house is the screen porch. Here is how the screened porch has changed over the years.

This year we are in the process of tearing down the room and rebuilding it as an all weather sunroom.  So I have decided to update and re-share this older post showing some of the ways we once used this ever changing, but loved, space in our home. 

 

 

 

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Our screened porch room is one of my favorite areas of our house. Especially during the warmers months in the south.  I can enjoy the outdoor space without dealing with the bugs that summer brings with it.

 

 

 

The pictures in this post show the best the screen porch probably ever looked before the wood rot and damage from the dogs got too bad.

 

I have posted about this room at least once for the last three or four summers and how we have decorated it new each time and how we use it each year.  

This room seems to be constantly changing depending on how we decide to use it, or how much the dogs want to destroy it.

 

 

 

Back in 2014, we finally started using this room after removing the ugly green plastic indoor/outdoor carpeting (who ever thought that was a good look?). We spent most of the summer of 2013 scrapping the glue off the concrete floor. 

Our furniture and accessories we had available to use for the room were sparse so it didn’t have much design comfort or personality.

 

 

 

It was functional but boring.

To add a bit of character to the rug for a blog project, I hand painted circles on the area rug that year.  The painted outdoor area rug didn’t last but two summers because I quickly learned that even though it is an outdoor rug, it still started to smell of wet dogs and mold.  Gross!  I gladly threw that rug in the trash at the end of the season.

In 2015, I made some furniture and rug changes to the room and tried to soften the look with new throw pillows and slip-covered cushions for the rockers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was the year we also installed lattice panels to the lower sections of the screens to keep the cat and dogs – and the raccoons –  from tearing them out.  

We are constantly struggling with where to put the cat food bowl each day because either raccoons, squirrels, birds, and occasionally a family of red foxes go after it. Putting the cat bowl inside this room just tempted the creatures even more and they would rip out the screens to get to it.  The lattice panels saved us from this problem but we also just accepted the fact that we were going to go through a lot of cat food either way.

This was such a nice space to enjoy the warmer months last summer – until we got the new puppies in September.  

The screen porch became the area we kept them in until they were fully house trained and so they constantly made a mess in this room.  Not to mention they sharpened their new teeth on the wood and wicker furniture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The summer of 2016, we realized we liked to use this room more as a summer dining room. Most days I would eat all three meals out here.  I brought in a plastic table that used to be my crafting table and desk, and the addition of some painted orange folding chairs when needed gave us more seating for company.

 

 

 

 

And you will notice the long gates in this photo – one inside and one outside the windows.

This was the summer we added several dog gates to our outdoor spaces to not only keep the dogs in, but to also keep them out.  Out of our more relaxed human spaces while we ate or had family over.

The gate gave them direct access to the outside pen.  No muddy paw prints on the rug and furniture every day.

 

Of course we would remove the gates and let them join us in the whole space. Supervised of course.

 

 

Let me just tell you I love this green and white rug.  I paid only $22 online at Lowe’s for it last summer and it is a plastic woven version.  Not nearly as soft as the last rug but so much better to hose it down to clean it with soap and water – and it never smells like wet dog!

 

 

I added the large galvanized bucket in the corner as a small table and covered it with a red bandanna for added color.  I purchased the large galvanized bucket at Tractor Supply this Spring to be used as an ice/drink cooler for my son’s wedding rehearsal party.  Of course I don’t really have another use for the bucket yet so temporarily using it as a table makes sense and also gives it a place for storage.  

 

 

We also added a few strands of string lights to be able to use this space at night.  The light from the ceiling fan is a bit harsh, so these small string lights add just enough soft light to the space.  

So this is how we are using our screened porch room over the years.  It worked well once the puppies grew up and didn’t destroy the furniture as much.  

But wood damage and rot were slowly taking over the framed walls of the screen porch.

Then in 2020 we got a new puppy, Recon, a very active and large German Shepherd who very quickly figured out that he could get out of the top screened sections of the walls.  He tore through every single one of them!

By the Fall of 2020 we had made the decision to finally tear down the two screened walls and build an all weather sunroom!

2021 – our plans to enclose this space have finally happened and will be a part of the Spring One Room Challenge.

 

I will be updating this post with links to the posts for the challenge over the next few weeks.  Until then, be sure to check the main page of the blog for the latest posts.

“Carefully consider the path for your feet, and all your ways will be established.”     Proverbs 4:26