House Tour Part 3: Porch

If I'd planned my House Tour posts as a realistic reflection of how guests see our home, I probably would have started with the porch. However, since we moved in nearly four years ago, the porch has remained the same dirty, mustard yellow chosen by the previous owners, with an ugly concrete floor covered in bits of dried-on underlay and dead woodlice. The colours in the "before" photos don't really do justice to just how horrible the colour was. If you want a better idea, try smearing some Coleman's on the nearest wall.

The porch was far from top priority on our list of DIY jobs, despite given visitors their first impression of our home, because it's so tiny that it basically just has space for people to wipe their feet as they step into the hall. The only objects breaking up the mustard-tastic walls were the porch light (a pretty standard black one), a solitary nail, and the air brick vent cover; which was stained with age and didn't sit flush with the wall. The vent also appeared to house The World's Greediest Spider, because whenever we accidentally knocked into it, hundreds of sucked-dry woodlice fell out. YUCK. 

During the last Bank Holiday weekend in May, I decided it was time the porch had a facelift. I removed the light and the disgusting vent cover (standing at arm's length, in case the spider decided to savage me), then scrubbed, filled, and painted the walls with some leftover emulsion. Despite the rest of our house looking like a Dulux factory explosion, I opted for white to make the most of the sunlight which bounces off* the walls of our south-facing porch and into the house. The light fixture joined the motley crew of household objects subjected to my can of copper spraypaint, along with my new vase, I bought and fitted a new vent cover, and the lonely nail was united with my new welcome wreath. Finally, we rehired the plumber who did our bathroom to tile the floor with the leftover tiles from our shower enclosure. 

So, here's what it looks like now:

  

What do you think?

If you fancy a snoop around some other rooms in our house, here's the bathroom, the living room, and an update about the living room.

Katie xxx

*When Tom reads this he'll probably give me a lecture about how "light doesn't bounce", and try to teach me about science. Can one of you please create a Wikipedia entry proving that light has the same properties as rubber? Thanks.