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.

Bird Cage Makeover

When I bought our male budgie "Humble" a number of years ago, I answered an ad in our local paper that said the owner had a baby budgie for sale, with cage and accessories for $15. I went to pick up my new little pet and was both excited and unhappy when I saw his cage. On the one hand, the cage was clearly not big enough for him to remain in very long. But, on the other hand, the cage was absolutely delightful to look at - a real vintage metal cage with a lovely shape and loads of potential. I bought a new cage for Humble very soon afterwards and relegated the old cage to the barn, thinking that I would have a creative moment some time soon and transform it into something else. Well, eight years have gone by and finally I've transformed it!

Yesterday, Donna over at An Enchanted Cottage revealed a charming makeover of her "swingset garden" and included in her pictures was a sweet one of a birdcage planter she has made. She linked to a previous blog where she explained how she made the planter (Donna's instructions for a birdcage planter). I loved what she had done and have to give her full credit for the inspiration for my own birdcage makeover.

So yesterday afternoon, inspired by Donna's blog and finally ready to tackle this job, I headed out to the barn to dig out that old birdcage. The last 8 years have taken their toll, I was actually rather delighted to see that the "fake brass" paint has chipped away leaving a lovely rusty cage to begin the project.

Here's how it looked before I started:

My first step was to brush on a "shabby" coat of cream-coloured paint, using loads of paint thinner so the rust would show through in lots of spots.

Next, I rooted around in my kitchen for a "dollar-store" plastic container that would work as a planting insert, puncturing a few holes in the bottom to allow for drainage. I chose several different colours of alyssum and an asparagus fern because I wanted something delicate and tiny to match the scale of the birdcage, and also because I love the sweet fragrance of alyssum.

Once I had assembled the planter, I needed a stand as I didn't think it would be safe to hang it. I finally decided on this old iron cafe chair, another "found" item that I discovered in the scrap pile at our shop (see Objet Trouve). I used an old board to give it extra stability underneath since the chair has no seat in it.  When I painted the cage, I had removed the glass inserts on the sides. In returning them, I deliberately did not clean them because I really liked the way the "rust" stains on the glass hid the plastic container from view and added to the "shabby chic" look.

But I felt something was missing. Donna had used a lovely little garden sculpture in her birdcage. I wracked my brain to think of what I had on hand that would be small enough. And then inspiration struck - this pretty  coloured-glass butterfly suncatcher would look beautiful hanging above the alyssum!

So here's what the final product looks like:

I haven't yet decided if the chair needs repainting. It might be a little more "shabby" than is strictly necessary in its current state!