The weekend our tax return made over our back porch...

This past week our tax return came through and we had three things we knew we wanted to splurge on; a new laptop, our plane tickets to DC and outdoor seating for our back porch. We managed to do all of that and put some of the return away to savings. I'll call that a success!

We started off our weekend by going back to Sapori di Napoli with my dad and sister. It was as amazing as the last time we went. This time was a little torturous for me seeing as I gave up pizza for lent. I am not a big believer in giving stuff up for lent, but I am using this lenten season as a way to break a really bad habit of mine- ordering pizza instead of cooking dinner.

My little sister and I- excuse the exhausted, long week look I have going on

 We got up bright and early on Saturday morning to help out at Pat's family farm in western Georgia. This is where my inspiration for our back porch re-model came to fruition. 

Daffodils! Always the first sign of spring in my college town

While the men were inside moving furniture, I walked the property for inspiration. I ended up finding three different galvanized containers that were not being used and probably never would be again. Hubs has been wanting to have his own herb garden, and I had just found him a container for his little herb garden! Since we are living in a rental we don't want to over do it by doing yard work when we can't take it with us when we leave. I figured this solution was perfect for us. We hurried home, stopped by Ikea to pick up our new outdoor table and then stopped by Home Depot for our planting supplies. 

Here is what our little outdoor oasis looked like before we started the transformation-

In the picture above Pat is nailing holes into the bottom of the containers so they will be able to drain when we water them. Our grill "cover" is literally just barely hanging on and we have a few old plastic planters scattered about.

Mid-transformation

Forgot to mention that the chairs we got to go with our table came from Home Depot. $20 for each chair seemed like a better option than $40 (at least) for each chair.

 

We chose Primrose for our flowers because they need only some sunlight through out the day and our back porch is pretty shaded from all of the pine trees. For our herb garden we planted basil, mint, cilantro and rosemary. With planting that herb garden I get to cross #91 off my 101 in 1001 list!

Our completed table and lanterns from Ikea

 

We ended the afternoon by sitting down to enjoy our new oasis for about 30 minutes before we had to run and get ready for dinner with Pat's mom and stepdad.

Other views of our little back porch oasis.

I'm so excited that we finally have a place that we can sit outside and enjoy. I'm looking forward to many weekends of reading, grilling out and having friends over to enjoy!


I hope y'all have all had great weather to enjoy this weekend. It's going to make going back to work tomorrow especially hard.