My favourite room in the house...

...is not even in the house!


I don't know if this is a trend where you live, but the big thing in home decor around here is the "Outdoor Room". People spend a small fortune on outdoor furnishings, lighting, flooring and accessories. The idea is to turn an outdoor space into a "room" as nice as your living room. Which, if you live where I do, you can only use about 2-3 months out of the year and then you have to store it somewhere for the rest of the year. Pretty extravagant.


Well, long before this was a trend, we turned our back porch into a back room. (Except we didn't spend a ridiculous amount of money on outfitting it - we used mostly stuff we already had.) The back porch is quite protected with a clear, corrugated plastic roof. It holds the heat from the sun nicely in the spring and the fall, so it really extends the amount of time we can use the porch. In the summer it gets quite hot and we hang sheeting up to block the sun from coming in, otherwise it would be too hot to use. It's a really nice place to have morning coffee.


Here is what it looks like...

...from the back of the porch. We have the sheets (actually they are tablecloths that I found at a clearance outlet) up already. I took these pictures a couple of nights ago. It was a really warm night and I came out to read for a while. The hanging lights we got for $5 each at the Habitat for Humanity Restore. Same thing with the carpet. The patio furniture and the old couch we already had. The only thing I actually bought were the tin ceiling tiles that I have hung on the wall. And I bought them with a gift certificate I had, yippee!

This is the view looking towards the back yard. (Which you can't see because it is night.) I do quite a bit of cooking out here in the summer. I use the bbq a lot and I have a little two burner hotplate that I use out here so I don't have to heat up the kitchen when it is really hot.

So I am actually "in style" for once, which is weird because we are usually the last to get whatever is new. (Like we just got our first DVD player last year.) Anyways, I like my room and I wanted to share it with you!