Final Touches at the Very Last Moment

One of my brothers and his girlfriend came the night before the wedding to help with last minute projects and all the morning-of craziness.  I cannot thank them enough for what they did!  My brother put up so many of the finishing touches that really made the porch feel complete.  And most of them went up at like 9pm the night before the wedding!

Behold the door knocker (that I bought a few weeks after buying the house) finally in place:

Address numbers!  It's funny to me that weren't any before. You can thank my awesome officiant friend for thinking of getting this shot of us:

Hanging basket hooks: I never got a good shot of these before the baskets died :(. But you can see them on each side of the porch in the picture above.

He also worked on putting up the curtain rods, but I accidentally didn't buy a rod long enough for the big stretch of three windows. Oops!  So that is still only half done.

My mom painted the shutters in June.  Maybe the week of the wedding?  They used to be a rusty red and now they are chocolate brown.  The paint seriously looked like melted chocolate.

Before:

After:

She also sanded (I think I stripped it in December and never got back to it!) and stained the bathroom window in the last week:

Sanded:

Stained!:

Two nights before the wedding I quickly made a little shade of sorts for the window. I just used a little spring curtain rod and a bit of fabric from JoAnn's. I used iron on hem tape on each edge so there wasn't even any sewing. I just wanted something pretty, it didn't need to function because we frosted the window.

I also used the same fabric on the inside of the bathroom door. I had wanted to fix the broken part, strip, & stain it before the wedding, but we ran out of time. So now this piece of fabric hides the ugly door. I just folded the edges in and used push pins to hold it up! Easy peasy.

I don't think I've ever showed the ugliness of this door. This is why it needs covering:

And here are shots of my Dad's last minute porch projects. He put white skirting boards on the edge of the porch (to cover the not so pretty treated wood) and bullnosed trim on the edge of the flooring. My mom also did a lot of exterior painting in those last few days.

Left side is done and the front side is in progress

Welcome mat:

Probably should've swept the porch before taking this picture #lazy

And my beloved porch furniture:

Many people thought I was crazy to be already buying porch furniture, but I wanted one area of the house to be 100% done.  Plus picking it out was the reward for all the stress of the project.  It is so nice to walk up to the house and revel in the completeness of the porch before walking into the house and noticing all the things I still want to do inside.  I got the furniture at Kohls surprisingly.  I really hunted around to find a good price.  Even the sets at Home Depot & Loews were in the thousands.  I almost bought a Target set, but they sold out of the color I wanted before I was ready to push the Buy button online.  I got the loveseat & swivel rocking chair for $500.  Based on all my research that is a steal.  I opened up a Kohls charge, used a coupon, they were on sale, and I had some store credit.  I got the metal stool at World Market for $60 and the storage cube at Target for $45.  I see those ceramic stools everywhere and really wanted one, but again most are like $200!  So I was so happy to see the same style in metal for much cheaper at World Market.  And I already had the pillows from Costco.  I think they were $15.  I wrote most of the wedding Thank Yous sitting on the loveseat while my puppy napped underneath me and felt so very happy with the state of my life :)