The carport is where we go in and out everyday. Since we have ample driveway space behind the house for parking cars, we rarely park the car in there simply because it makes things feel more open and gives us a sense of an “outdoor entry” – even though it’s far from inviting or remotely pretty…

Our “way-down-the-road plan” is to finish the carport and make it a bonus room. Until then, we want to make it as welcoming and inviting as possible without pouring a ton of money into it. In order to get started on the right track, we picked out three major improvements that will make a big impact without breaking the bank:

1. OVERHEAD. Just about everything in the carport could use some sort of facelift, but the ceiling especially needs some work. The paint, which was once white (probably back in the 70′s!) is now a sickly-looking yellow, dirty, and peeling like crazy. Then there’s the lighting – which clearly speaks for itself:

We’ve known since we bought the house that something needed to be done to the ceiling, but we knew scraping, sanding, and re-painting the ceiling was going to be a ton of work. Even though we felt like we were up for the task, a smooth, solid colored ceiling wouldn’t be that interesting and definitely wouldn’t bring any “warmth” to the space. Inspiration struck when we saw an episode of Sarah’s House on HGTV. Instead of repairing the existing carport ceiling, Sarah had it covered with raw wood paneling and painted it the same color as the trim. Genius! I couldn’t find a close-up photo of this project (I did find the whole episode online! Check it out here.) but here’s an inspiring before and after:

This idea (or a version of it) with the addition of two new light fixtures will (hopefully) totally transform the now cold and dingy carport into an inviting “outdoor entry”. As for the light fixtures, we’re thinking of replacing them with two hanging lantern lights – maybe something like one of these…

2. THE FLOOR. Oh, the floor. We sweep it regularly but after years of cars sitting on it, it’s very badly stained and cracked. Therefore, we feel the best way to solve this problem is to start from scratch. No, we’re not going to try to rip the whole thing out. We’re planning on repairing the cracks and coating the carport floor with a textured epoxy. I kinda sorta spilled a mixture of ultra dark wood stain on the floor during another small project that is currently in progress (more on that later). Yet another reason to “start from scratch”.

The epoxy will protect the floor from spills and make cleaning a lot easier. This will probably be our biggest “DIY” project to date (at least in our heads anyway), but we’re pretty sure we can do it. I guess we’ll find out soon enough! Not as soon as we would like though. While we would love to get this done over the upcoming 3-day weekend, we read that it’s best to do this when it’s under 90 degrees. Sadly, this weekend, the forecast is a rather toasty 93 degrees plus.

3. FINISHING TOUCHES. This step consists of a lot of little things, including power washing the steps and walls, bringing in a planter or two, re-painting the railings, and possibly adding doormats.

That pretty much sums up what we’ve got planned for the carport – aka: “outdoor entry” and a majority of what we’ll be up to this weekend. Do you have any outdoor projects lined up for this holiday weekend? Clue us in by leaving a comment…

Sarah’s House inspiration photos found here. Lighting inspiration from Shades of Light. Flower planter image found here.

Spring is in full force… birds are chirping, flowers are blooming, the grass is green (and growing fast as ever) and, unfortunately, weeds are popping up left and right – particularly where the bricks meet the driveway and the carport floor meets the asphalt…

Rather than going to the hardware store to buy weed killer, we opted to do a little research in hopes of finding a natural weed killer. After a bit of Google-ing, we found the most popular “natural weed killer” of choice was none other than vinegar. Vinegar is one of our cleaning bucket staples but we hadn’t thought about the possibilities of using it outdoors, much less as a weed killer. Apparently, the acetic acid in vinegar is what dries up and ultimately kills the weeds. Since vinegar is really cheap (only a buck or two per gallon), we figured we should give it a try.

Before we went spraying the entire perimeter of the house with vinegar, we decided to test the method where the carport and driveway come together. Here’s the before:

Before we show the after photo, here’s what we did: Obviously, we went out a bought a gallon of white vinegar. Next, we took an old Round-Up container, pulled off the lid, and rinsed it out thoroughly. Once that was done, we just filled up the container, pumped it up to the proper pressure, and went to town! It was really pretty easy. An old spray bottle would work just as fine.

Now, our results…

Okay. So this isn’t too impressive. There are several things that pop into my head as to what happened here: First, maybe there wasn’t enough sunlight (apparently this is a major factor in vinegar’s effectiveness). Second, maybe we didn’t use enough. The round-up container puts out a very fine mist; maybe we would have been better off just dumping some of our gallon container on the weeds. Third, maybe our climate is too humid for it to work well? Regardless, we’re going to keep testing more combinations and see what really works. We know it should work. It’s just a matter of finding what works for our weeds.

If you are planning on trying this remedy out for yourself, here are a few things to remember:

• The acidic acid in the vinegar is the “killing agent”. This won’t work for pesky weeds in the flower bed because it will probably kill anything the vinegar comes in contact with. Therefore, vinegar is best used as a weed killer in concrete, between pavers, etc.
• If used in direct sunlight, you’ll see the weeds start to brown an wither within just a few minutes. Larger weeds may take a day or so to fully die.
• Yes, vinegar is really smelly. Give it a few minutes and rest assured, the smell will go away (especially on a hot day).

How about you?… Do you have any natural garden/outdoor remedies?

Here in Virginia, the weather has been crazy random so far this year. One day, it was 71 degrees outside, the next it plummeted to 38 degrees. Through all the craziness, it seems that Spring has finally sprung and is springing. We thought it would be fun to show you guys what Spring is looking like around here and familiarize everyone with the outside of our house since we’ve been mostly talking about the inside. Just bear in mind that we haven’t really concentrated on the exterior quite yet – aside from painting the front door and the shutters. Luckily, we inherited a few photo-worthy plants/trees from the previous owner.

Let’s start in the front yard with one of our two Dogwood trees. They’re one of my favorite trees/plants and we’re really glad our house came with not one, but two! Fun fact: Dogwoods are Virginia’s state flower and tree. The street where we live must be considered patriotic because there are a lot of Dogwoods – at least one per house, if not more.

Fortunately, the picturesque Dogwood draws your attention away from the naked-looking bushes lining the house. We’ve nicknamed them “the Little Bushes That Could”. Last year, we cut them back because they were taking over the house. We were told they would “grow back better” but so far, they haven’t budged. We might end up replacing them at some point, or we might just accept the fact that it’s going to take a while for them to grow back. We should probably do some research about pruning before we cut our plants back next time…

Close to the house, right outside Ashley’s office window, is some sort of flowering bush accompanied by a few Boxwoods. The bush doesn’t have that many blooms, probably due to the sporadic weather and lack of light, but it still has plenty of visual appeal. We’re definitely not horticulturists, so we aren’t quite sure what this is.  Anybody have any clues?

Even though there aren’t many blooms and the dark tips make it look like the petals aren’t going to be around for long, they are still nice to look at.

As you go down the driveway, you’ll find our second Dogwood tree. We like how it hovers slightly over the driveway — but not so much that we would have to cut it back.

While the Dogwood in the front yard is white, this one is white with barely-there pink tips.

Around the back (on the left side when facing the back of the house) is another little area of bushes. We weren’t expecting them to do much, but when Spring hit, they really started looking great! We think the red “bush” is actually a baby Japanese Maple tree. (Like I said… not a horticulturist–anybody know the technical name for this little guy?) We aren’t sure what the other three bushes are either but their color has definitely amped up over the past few days.

On the back side of our yard, right up against our neighbor’s fence, we have yet another bush with red/pink flowers. It’s just like the one in the front yard, but this one is much larger and has more blossoms. This area of the yard tends to get more sunlight than the front of the house, so that may have something to do with it.

The flowers on this bush are just as bright as the other. Again, color enhancement brought to you by Mother Nature. No Photoshop required!

That wraps up our outdoor Spring tour. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get out there and enhance what we already have and maybe add some much needed landscaping before Spring passes by. Fingers crossed! Do you have any outdoor projects planned for the Spring? Tell us about them in the comments section…