Our new porch and sidewalk; March 2016

When we bought our house (almost) 7 years ago, we wrote into the contract that they leave the front porch furniture. This included a swing, a rug, two chairs, and a table. We didn't love the furniture, but it fit the space perfectly and them leaving it behind meant we had one less space to find furniture for. We were moving into a larger home than the one we had in Atlanta, and filling all the spaces was expensive. That furniture lasted us 5 years before it really started to show its age and look like it needed to be replaced. The furniture itself was in pretty solid shape, but the cushions needed recovering and the rug was torn and tattered. I couldn't find replacement cushions, so that would have been expensive to hire out and the look we wanted for the porch was less traditional anyways, so we decided to spend some of the tax return on getting new furniture for the porch.

As a part of that, I decided I wanted to power wash the porch because it was dirty and had so many patches that it needed some sprucing up. I borrowed one from a friend and it was a fun two days getting the whole thing cleaned off.

At some point, someone painted it to look like stones.

The pressure washer did an awesome job! But then I just wanted new concrete even more.

So once we power washed the whole thing, we decided to finally spend the money to replace it anyways! (eyeroll emoticon) We got a concrete recommendation last year and just couldn't justify the money spent in 2015, so we waiting a full year before actually using them. I texted him to come back and give me a new estimate and afterward found the old one. We bit the bullet and told him to get started and three days later, we had a new walkway and new porch. Here's the journey in pictures!

At the same time, we hired Robbie to come remove two of the three columns and to change up the remaining one. I wanted the porch to be more open, more modern, more clean-lines. We enjoy sitting on the porch and the columns were just in the way of viewing and the design of them kept the house stuck in "a little bit country." We don't want to overhaul the look of the house, but we want to keep it transitional, hanging onto the edge of traditional while still being aware of the original era of the house and that it's now 2016 (nearly 60 years after the house was originally built).

First, all the furniture items started arriving as well as the new rug. It was in our front room for about a week until the porch was poured and ready for stuff.

This was also right around Easter which is when the camera card decided to start acting weird. Lots of pictures that I know I took from those weeks are gone now, so you'll have to bear with what I have left:

If you look close, you can see the McQueen I buried.

Just showing the size of the step.

Now there's only one column. 

I put our mailbox here since he wouldn't be able to get it on the door.
He didn't deliver any mail, though.

There's a slight problem with the sidewalk, where water puddles in one of the squares, so I need him to fix that, but otherwise we're thrilled with the update. The porch being the same as the house is SO nice! People comment all the time how much easier it is to get in and house of house and the porch furniture is the perfect transitional style we were looking for. I'm in love!