Home Improvement | Motherhood Is An Art

There’s nothing like a long vacation that puts me in the mood for working my patootie off!

I have been in almost constant motion since we set foot back on our homestead. Today had me in a particularly high speed whirl as I did a complete makeover on our back porch. Can anyone guess how much a complete makeover of a back porch costs? Anyone? Anyone? Well, the answer is a big ol’ nothing! Yes, that’s right, it cost zero dollars to give a fresh look to our forlorn little porch!

Before I do the big reveal I have to show you two other projects.

While we were in New Mexico the past few weeks I attended a few garage sales and a flea market. I know, I’m on vacation and can still not get away from my scavenger hunt addiction.

The first project is actually courtesy of my husband. He had been looking for a bull skull while we were on vacation and many of them were very costly. However we finally found one at a flea market for $20 but someone had painted it and it was extremely ugly in my opinion:

That’s one ugly bull head!

I told my husband he should get it though at that price and we could spray paint it. My husband set to work yesterday and here is the finished result:

A new piece of art for our living room!

The next project was one that I did yesterday. I had found an old highway sign at the same flea market. It is New Mexico’s Highway 25 which is one of the major highways in the state. I absolutely love old rustic things so this was right up my alley. It was really dirty though but what can you expect when you only pay $15:

Old highway sign

I cleaned it up with a soapy water and a toothbrush and then I varnished the whole thing. It now hangs in my kitchen:

My new kitchen art

Unfortunately I don’t have a before picture of my porch to show you but trust me it was bad! It is actually one of the most used spaces when we have company so it really deserved to be spruced up. As I said before the redo cost nothing except my time and a really sore back right now. I already owned the porch swing, the old table and the old rocking chair. The rest of the furniture was found on the side of the road recently all ready to be brought to the dump. I think I really scored. Plus the paint I used was from our local recycling center that you can get free paint from that people have brought in that can no longer use it. So I spent a good portion of the day painting all of this furniture. Both of my older kids helped out too. My son painted the legs of the table and my daughter painted two wooden stools and a children’s table and chair that we have had for quite some time that I had picked up at the thrift store. Here is how it all turned out: