Marvelous Metamorphosis Monday

It's Marvelous Monday again and today I've decided to participate in the Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch, partially because I love the name of that blog (for obvious reasons) and partially because I am really thrilled with how my screened porch turned out.

For some reason that completely fails me now, I allowed my dogs the reign of our screened-in porch for the last few years.  Here's a before pic:

As you can see, the floor was in BAD need of a fresh coat of porch paint. The furniture was completely geared to canine comfort (i.e. an old ratty rocking chair and an equally-old bench seat from a long-discarded minivan). The dogs loved having free-reign over the little porch but we were getting no benefits from it whatsoever!

Then, inspiration struck and I decided to convert it into a little reading room.  You may have noticed a picture of it in my sidebar ... "My Current Favourite Reading Spot."

Last year I took these old wooden chairs that have followed me from apartment to apartment, painted them a sunny yellow and purchased new cushions for them. I hadn't yet found the perfect place for them, but they fit perfectly in their new home! (sorry there are no "before pictures" of the chairs - I could probably find some somewhere -basically they were dingy brown with strange red cushions.)

I fell in love with these miniature african violets at a local florist and thought they'd fit perfectly in my Chinese tea cups.

This past weekend, I've been working on some "finishing touches" for my reading room.  Years ago I bought this little occasional table that had a cherry wood veneer.  I've moved so many times, from apartment to apartment that when I finally got married 8 1/2 years ago, the poor little table was still intact but showing a lot of signs of wear and tear.  I've been planning to do something with it for a while and finally got inspired this weekend.  This is how it turned out:

I picked up a little decorative birdcage at a garage sale on Saturday.  It was a horrid fuchsia pink!  A little paint in a vintage green colour and some touches of antique white have transformed it into this lovely little addition to my sunporch.

For now I've placed one of the mini African violets inside, but I'm thinking a nice fat white candle would look great in there!

I also found this sweet little elephant at a garage sale and just knew he would look adorable underneath the gigantic leaves of this tropical plant!

I decided to redo the mailbox as it was an old worn, rusty brass.  Since we get our "real" mail in the mailbox at the end of our driveway, this box is used solely for notes dropped off by family members and friends, so I thought I could get away with the "love notes" sign without frightening the mailman to death!  : )

Here's a couple pictures of how my sunporch looks now:

So this Marvelous Monday, I'm thankful for a rainy weekend that allowed me to catch up on some little painting jobs I've been wanting to do, and for garage sale finds that never fail to inspire me, and for my own private little reading room that is so tranquil and a lovely spot to be, regardless of the weather.