Make It Pretty Monday: Country Porch

Thank you, Kathryn, for featuring my gardens on the Dedicated House's Sunday Showcase! What a surprise, and an honor to be in such elegant company.

This week I am inviting you to set a spell on my porch.

My front porch is definitely a working porch. By that I mean we use it, a lot. We work on projects there, sit in our rockers or on the swing to watch the birds in the mornings and drink a glass of wine and play with the dogs in the evening. Summer visitors are more likely to be out on the porch than in the house, and most of them love to sway gently in our old swing.

Here's a look at where we spend hours of our time in the warm weather:

The swing was a ReStore find--that's the Habitat for Humanity store that sells used building materials and all kinds of other things. It's a great resource for primitive and country decorating as well as remodeling, and there are stores located all across the country. We did nothing to the swing except buy some chain and hang it up.

The quilt on the back of the swing is just an unfinished top but I like the soft colors that seem to go so well with summer flower gardens, and it fits so well with my rustic home.

This little corner holds a lot of memories. The basket you can see in the top right corner is a tobacco basket, a memory of our tobacco-growing days. We used the corn planter when all five sons were still at home and we had a much larger garden. The three tines you can see in the top left corner belong to a wheat cradle which we never used, but I have had it here for many years. There are coal mining picks, a tribute to my husband's father, a bucket of garden hand tools, a little crock...so many things that have been here since I moved to this land 40 years ago. The washstand was given to me at a yard sale; I painted it and added new knobs and now it stores boots, bee spray, small tools and who knows what else. It's a catchall, really, but so handy. My hat is hanging over a slate I painted 25 years ago, my first and only attempt.

I liked the way the deck was reflected in the stained glass window behind the swing.

 These are the Granny and Poppa Larry rockers, gifts from our daughter-in-law Jennifer. Best seat in the house for birdwatching! The vine over the door came from Grapvine Point on the James River in Virginia, the place where the Jamestown settlers were getting ready to abandon their settlement and sail back to England when the supply ships were spotted on the horizon. The rest is history, as they say, and I like having this reminder of it on my porch. We picked up that big vine when my son Derek was stationed nearby. The round mirror is a nod to folklore--did you know that evil spirits have to stop and admire themselves in a mirror and that distracts them from entering your home. 'Tis so, according to old superstitions. Blue bottles also attract and trap them so there you see the blue bottle hanging on my porch as well as in the tree out in the garden.

And this is the view (well part of the view) we see from our porch. Just trees and flowers, the firepit, the sidewalk that really needs to be replaced, and in the distance two of the vegetable gardens and one of the grape arbors. Nothing fancy, but I never get tired of looking at it. 

If you're ever in the neighborhood, do stop by. I can promise you fresh-ground coffee, good conversation, and a comfortable place to rest on my country porch.

Linking again to Make it Pretty Monday. Do pay Kathryn a visit and see all the many creative ideas and projects completed by her readers.

Copyright 2012 Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Make It Pretty Monday--Spring Gardens

 Photos from around our home. Spring is so incredibly beautiful, isn't it? Our place is surrounded by forest, a kind of green oasis with no other houses in sight. Country living has some benefits that are not necessarily apparent on the surface--and the work it takes to create a home and gardens in the woods is not really apparent either. It's taken 35 years to look like this, using only our wits and a lot of hard work to make it happen.

 This is a new addition to our gardens. A neighbor was getting rid of her picket fence, so we took it off her hands :) It makes a nice entranceway to the house.

Green, green, green, with pink and white accents.

 ..and the old red truck and the old man for accents too!

The lettuce bed is overflowing with Red Sails and Green Ice lettuce and Cherry Belle radishes.

That's our Spring Garden Tour! Now, back to weeding.

Linking this week to The Dedicated House's Make it Pretty Monday.

Copyright 2012 Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Pretty Spelled Red, Black, and White

I've noticed a change in my kitchen. It's been gradual, although it probably started when I was eighteen. I was married already and had a little son when my husband's great aunt Eva passed away. His mother decided to have a tag sale at Aunt Eva's house and we went. I fell in love with her old kitchen things and bought what I could afford at the time. Five dollars bought me some wooden spoons I still own today, a mixing bowl I loved (and that a cat broke some years later), and a Ransburg red-orange crock cookie jar--which I still have. The lid is cracked and glued back together, a memory of a time when my sons were little and got caught getting into the cookies.

Some years later I got a set of canisters at an auction that matched the cookie jar; I still have them too. They were worn and battered but I liked them and kept them and still use them daily. They're still worn and battered but then so am I! Last week I found a small shaker set in the same color and pattern. The addiction grows.

Over the years more kitchen items from the 30's, 40's and 50's have crept into my kitchen. Vintage plates replaced more modern dishes. Crockery bowls, red-handled utensils, cast iron, Fire-King and Hazel Atlas fill my shelves. The dishwasher was removed when I realized that most of my kitchenware could not be washed in it. The everyday sinkful of dirty dishes looked more and more like a vintage shop window. Now I buy nothing to cook with or eat from that was made later than 1970. I didn't plan it that way, but that is what my kitchen has become, and I love it.

At last week's auction I found a red and ivory sugar and creamer and matching platter by Homer Laughlin from probably the same time period as the cookie jar. For three dollars they were mine. At the same auction we got a Crossley radio made in the 80's to look like one from the 30's-40's and got it too, also for $3.00. It plays beautifully. I listed the platter on eBay and it's selling for enough to pay for the radio, the creamer and sugar and still have enough left for a cup of coffee.

Now the radio, the creamer and sugar bowl and the Ransburg pieces share space on my counter. I am in love all over again.

Linking today to Nifty Thrifty, Creative Homemaker on a Dime and The Dedicated House's Make it Pretty Monday. Be sure to visit them for lots of great ideas and inspiration.

Copyright 2012 Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.