#just gonna make spooky dice all year round

[amherstdice]

Gettin’ ready for spoopy season

(These are not finished. They are not inked, and have not yet been sanded)

#just gonna make spooky dice all year round #it’s a good vibe #the next set is much less cute #dnd #dice #ttrpg #dungeons and dragons #amherst dice #handmade dice #amherstdice #dnd dice #dice goblin #dungeons & dragons

[nataliedanovelist]

GF + OH - Fallen Owls pt.1

Summary: What happens when the milf of The Owl House meets the dilf of Gravity Falls? Find out in this multi-chapter crossover fic.

pt.2

~~~~~~~~~~

Episode Placement:

GF = after finale (S3?) OH = between S1E5 and E6 It was late, passed the gremlins’ bedtime, but it was summer, meaning the term “bedtime” had very little meaning unless Stan was tired and needed to make the kids quiet. But as of right now he was content sitting in his old armchair, boxers and undershirt and slippers and all, munching on popcorn with his family, sitting around telling stories. Stan and his twin brother, Ford, had just finished telling Dipper and Mabel more about the sirens they had faced a few months ago. While sailing around the world was a dream come true, it was nice to take a break to spend the summer with the niblings.

Dipper, having just heard how Stan had been charmed by the sirens’ song, chuckled and asked, “So, did you ever have any luck finding ‘babes’?” Stan rubbed the back of his neck with a sheepish smile. “Nah, but there’s always next year.” “Yeah, don’t worry about it, Grunkle Stan.” Mabel said as she popped some popcorn into her mouth. “You’ll find some pretty girl that is everything you deserve!” Stan, turning red, waved the subject away. “Thanks, sweetie, but it’s fine.” Ford, sitting on the dino-skull, elbowed him lightly and teased, “He’s still heartbroken over Carla McCorckle.” Mabel blew a raspberry. “If I ever find her I’m gonna give her a left-hook and break her nose!” Stan laughed and ruffled her hair. “That’s not necessary, kid. I’m over her.” “And it only took you forty years.” Ford added, earning him a punch on the shoulder. “I’ll have you know I’ve been with plenty of gals after Carla!” Stan quipped. “Heck, I was married once when I was traveling the country!” “Wait, what?!” The whole room gasped at the same time. Ford blinked like a confused owl. “I… I didn’t know that.” “Me, neither.” Mabel said and leaned on Stan’s knee. Dipper, meanwhile, was silent, a memory coming to mind. “Truth is I’ve been divorced once and slapped more times than I can remember.” “What happened? GASP! Do I have a secret Graunty you never told me about?!” Stan barked a laugh. “Hah! No, sorry pumpkin. I was actually married for less than a day. Vegan situation. We reached for the same slot machine handle and it was love at first sight. Marilyn. Had hair like a airline stordis and a neon pink shirt that said ‘Over thirty and very flirty’. Man I was, I was putty in her hands.” Stan said lightly, recalling the most romantic evening he ever had. “You should’ve seen the way she threw dice. One time right at my head. Turns out she only married me to distract me while she stole my car and my winnings. I guess her name was fake and, hair was fake. But ya know, the love was real.” Stan added with a casual shrug. “She was really the one that got away. Like, literally, it was a proper get away. She was chased by cop cars for a mile out of Vegas before ducking out of a door and into a canyon and making off with my loot. Sometimes I still think of her.” The old conman admitted. “That pale bingo hall skin. That one weirdly sharp tooth.” Stan’s face dropped at the sight of his family and he quickly said, “Sorry, I’m getting nostalgic.” “More like love-sick.” Dipper teased. “AW!” Mabel squealed. “That’s so sweet! Maybe you’ll find her one day!” Stan laughed and shook his head. “I doubt it, sweetie, but hey. Who needs stealing babes when I’ve got you three, right?” Mabel yawned and stretched her arms over her head. Ford chuckled and stood up, popping his back. “I think you two should head to bed. It’s getting late and we’re going camping tomorrow, remember?” Mabel gasped happily and stood. “You’re right!” She hugged both her uncles and wished them goodnight and then walked with her brother up the stairs for the attic, then Ford left to go finish packing, leaving Stan alone. He leaned on his knuckles, elbow on his armchair, and he remembered Marilyn. ~~~~~~~~~~ Mabel was grinning from ear to ear as she skipped ahead on the trail in the woods. “Finally, a real family camping trip!” Grunkle Ford, Dipper, and Grunkle Stan were right behind her, the Pines family heading back to the Mystery Shack after a fun night sleeping under the stars around a campfire. They were all smiling and happy to be reunited for the summer. While some things drastically changed and some things hardly changed at all, the Pines in appearance changed a little since Dipper and Mabel and turned thirteen. Mabel had always been nothing but smiles in the past, but if it was even possible she grinned even more now, proud to show off her braces-free white teeth. She still sported amazing sweaters with colorful headbands and skirts, today wearing a brown skirt and a yellow headband with a light-brown sweater with an owl on it, claiming she wanted to match the woods and her Grunkle Ford; he only proved her point when he blushed. Dipper and Wendy switched hats again when they saw each other when the twins came off the bus, but over his orange t-shirt he wore a green flannel unbuttoned and he matched it with blue jeans. No longer out in the freezing Arctic, Stan left behind his long coat, but he kept his white t-shirt, dark pants, red beanie, and water-proof boots for the hiking trip. Ford, the easily cold twin, still wore red turtleneck and dark pants and boots, but his smile was much more genuine and the crack in his glasses was gone. Grunkle Ford patted his niece’s shoulder. “It is nice to have some quality family bonding.” “Next time I say we go fishing.” Stan injected. “Not as many creepy spider-fires or whatever.” “Scampfires.” “I still say whatever.” Dipper chuckled and continued to sketch in his pinetree journal, shading in trees of his drawing of the woods. But he was pulled from his pleasant thoughts by his great-uncle. “Seriously, kid, you’re gonna walk into a tree and then I’m gonna laugh. You need to get your head outta book and see the rest of the world.” “Grunkle Stan, how do you think people shared the world back in your day? You know, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth?” Dipper quipped. “Oh, ho! Wise guy, huh?” Stan wrapped an arm around his neck and rubbed his knuckles on the top of his head. “Alright, Poindexter Jr…” “No! No nuggies!” “Yes nuggies!” “Ford!” Dipper laughed, calling for backup. Mabel, meanwhile, was slowly being pulled away mentally from the touching scene of guys being dudes as the internet would have called it. Distracting her, a tiny brown owl with cute round eyes was hopping. Not just hopping, appearing from behind one oak tree to the neck, but hopping with a sack clamped by the beak. Mabel watched it with wide eyes, hoping for another look, and the second glance she got of it was so brief she didn’t know how much faith she should have in her eyes, but it looked like that sack had things like a Cubic Cube, a newspaper, a floppy disk, a basketball, and other items that could be classified as junk. Mabel decided not to wait for another glance at the owl and to go look at it for herself. Mabel wandered off the path animals had made and moved in between trees and bushes quietly. Her brown eyes eventually landed on the little owl and she followed it; the clattering of the owl or it’s determination to finish it’s job must have been the reason why it didn’t hear Mabel and try to hide or lose her. The young Pines lady watched, walking farther and farther away from her family, and the owl hopped behind a tree and never emerged. Mabel smiled, thinking she was about to find an owl’s nest in the tree or a stash of human things by the tree’s roots, but when she turned to look behind the tree, she gasped to find a doorway that glowed white. Mabel looked around her for anyone that might have an answer or for any clue as to why this doorway was here, but she was alone. Gravity Falls certainly was where this sort of thing might happen, but that did not guarantee that this was safe. Maybe she should have the guys look at this thing. Mabel turned around, her back to the doorway, to leave, but she saw something above her and took in a sharp breath. Stan had Dipper pinned on the grass now, both of them laughing, with Ford shaking his head and scolding lightly. “Stanley, that’s enough.” “Don’t worry, Grunkle Ford, I promise not to break such an old man.” Dipper teased as he lightly fought back, “Old man?!” Stan repeated in pretend offense. They were interrupted by a blood curdling scream that made their hearts drop. Stan immediately got off of his nephew and stared ahead, terrified. “Mabel…” And he ran for the direction he heard the scream with Ford and Dipper at his heels. Mabel pulled her grappling hook out of her hiking-backpack and tried to calm down, but it was hard to with the dangerous anomaly liking it’s chops at the sight of her. It was like a gray lizard, but ten feet long, including the tail, and only on it’s four legs it was seven feet tall. It’s eyes were red and narrow and cold, and it had long sharp claws like a dragon’s and a long snout like a crocodile. Mabel shot her grappling hook at the monster and it hit it on the snout, tossing its head back. The lizard hissed but did not back down. It advanced, getting closer to Mabel, and she wanted to back away, but she was careful not to touch the spooky doorway. Stan saw the scene first, appearing out of the corner of Mabel’s eye. “Mabel!” “Grunkle Stan, what do I do?!” She asked, her eyes glued to the giant lizard. Ford and Dipper caught up. The younger moved to jump between his sister and the monster, but Ford stopped him with a firm six-fingered hand. “No! Listen to me, Mabel. That thing is called a Stone-Reptilian. They're excellent at camouflaging into mountains and can hang onto a one-hundred-and-eighty degree wall for hours, waiting for its prey. It actually has two tongues: one for licking its eyes since it doesn't have eyelids, and one for paralyzing it’s dinner and dragging the meal into its mouth.” “So what do I do?!” Mabel begged, shaking a little at the idea of being paralyzed and then eaten alive. “Mabel, stay calm, it’s alright.” Ford soothed with a voice as soft as silk. “Stone-Reptilians have excellent eyesight, but they’re deaf. Notice how it’s isn’t reacting to us. Now, I want you to…” The Stone-Reptilian suddenly whipped out it’s long, thorn-covered tongue to paralyze Mabel, but she was too quick and leaped through the doorway to survive. As she did, it disappeared, and the Pines men were left to scream and then fight for their own lives. ~~~~~~~~~~ “Whoops, can’t have another stowaway, can I?” A voice said, and then before Mabel knew it, her way back home was gone. She observed her new surroundings. Misfit things like a refrigerator, a grandfather clock, an old mattress, and cardboard boxes full of items cluttered what looked like a big tent, judging by the cloth walls and such. Mabel smiled with wonder at the things. “Wow. What a collection.” She whispered. Her eyes landed on a small glass ballerina on top of a music box. She turned the ballerina around with a finger to catch a few music notes. Mabel smiled, but was once again distracted. “Right, let’s see here… Nope. Garbage. Garbage. Another one of these? Oh, well. Good thing the potions have been selling. I should really thank Luz for helping me take out that competitor. Or not.” Mabel covered her mouth with both hands to keep from snorting; that sounded like something her Grunkle Stan would say. Her heart sagged a little and she turned to look back at where the magical doorway once was. Despite what he might pretend, Mabel knew Stan would be really worried about her. She needed to find a way back home. She crawled on her hands and knees out from under the tent and then got up to explore. “Okay, let’s see…” Mabel looked around to find herself outside in the open air. She raised an eyebrow. “The… Crawlspace? I thought it was underground? Maybe there’s more to it! Won’t Grunkle Ford be surprised!” Mabel cheered and looked around for anything familiar, but the longer she looked, the more she realized nothing was like back in Gravity Falls. She stood at the edge of a cliff, overlooking an odd city of some kind. Giant monster hands with no body stood like trees. Smoke rose from chimneys of medieval-looking houses. A small herd of cat-sized dragons flocked by the clouds. A mammoth roared like a lion and then walked into the ocean. Something resembling an orange nun was selling bags of oozing red stuff to tiny red monsters with teeth and fangs for a face. People were riding a giant caterpillar from inside its mouth and then kissing it for a toll. Mabel’s heart was racing from excitement and fear. Nothing here was familiar, but she was familiar with the unfamiliar. She grasped the straps of her backpack and took a deep breath. “Okay, Mabel, you’ve obviously discovered another rift and came to another dimension. Just remember what your grunkles taught you. Don’t touch this dimension's version of yourself or everything will explode. I just gotta live long enough for them to find me. Easy.” Her stomach suddenly growled. Mabel clenched her stomach on reflex, but then remembered her bag of marshmallows, pulled them out, and began to munch on her fluffy sugar pillows. She turned around and walked away from the tent she had left, saw she was in some sort of market, and walked down the street to explore calmly. ~~~~~~~~~~ “And remember to apply it twice a day for the best results.” Luz said friendly to a blue monster made out of goo as she handed her the small bag of dust and the customer closed the door on the human. Luz wiped her sweaty forehead with her wrist and groaned. “Man, it’s so hot today. Ready to head home, King? King?” She looked down to find that the king of demons had found the perfect spot on the porch to nap in the sunshine. Luz smiled, scratched his back, and scooped him up one-armed while her other hand carried the empty sack. “Eh?” King woke up, angry and cute. “Luz! I was having the perfect dream!” “About what?” “What could be more perfect than sleeping?!” “You were dreaming about sleeping?” Luz clarified with a confused smile. “Don’t you?” Luz snorted a laugh and walked through Bonesburrow. Compared to the rest of the Boiling Isles, the apprentice had learned that this was the quietest neck of the woods. King’s nose caught a delightful scent, but the demon was unsure if he should believe it. He sat up in Luz’s arm and smelled the air. “What is it?” Luz asked. “Hm, it’s sweet. Really sweet.” King commented and shivered. “Like, really sweet. So sweet it’ll put anyone in a sugar-induced coma.” “Well, why don’t we just go home and we can have some of Eda’s strawberry jelly instead.” Luz suggested as they turned a corner. She immediately saw the one really really weird thing in the Boiling Isles, apart from her. Another human. After being away from home for about three weeks, Luz didn’t think she would be so happy to see another human girl or see human food that wasn’t red, but here she was, eyes sparkling with happy tears over the sight. Mabel’s eye eventually landed on Luz and the two stared at each other, a good twenty feet away from each other. After a few moments, however, they both shouted, “ANOTHER HUMAN!” And ran towards each other, King clinging onto Luz’s arms in order not to fall. “Wait,” The brunette said and looked worried. “Is this your first time seeing another human here? How long have you been trapped here?!” She apparently had drawn the conclusion that there was no way out of this place. “Oh, no,” The Latino smiled and shook her head. “I’m not trapped here; I can leave whenever I want, I just choose not to.” “Oh. Cool! Hi! I’m Mabel!” “Hi, Mabel.” Luz greeted. “I’m Luz! So… how did you get here?” Mabel’s face dropped a little and she looked around. “You know, I’m not really sure. One minute I was camping with my family and the next I’m falling through a door that disappears and takes me here.” Luz giggled and shook her head. “You must have fallen through Eda’s door. Don’t worry, I can get you back home.” “You can?!” Mabel hugged her tightly, squishing King in between the two girls. “ThankyouthankyouTHANKYOU!” Luz, who was quite the hugger but lived with two hug-haters, grinned and relished in the hug, until a high-voice yelled, “AH! What is with you humans and this tight holding ritual?!” Mabel’s eyes got wide and she jumped away, looking around wildly; that voice sounded too familiar for comfort, but when she saw the king of demons, she gasped with a huge grin and shining eyes. “OH MY GOSH! How cute!!!” She squealed. “Thanks.” Luz giggled and rubbed his belly. “This is the King of Demons.” “This little bundle of joy?” Mabel asked, happily smoothing over his skull and scratching his back. “That’s what I said!” “Hey, hey, easy with the merchandise!” King complained. “What makes you think you can… oh! Oh! Right there, yup, right there.” Mabel had found the right scratching spot, just between his shoulder-blades, and King relaxed in Luz’s arms, almost asleep he was so comfortable. Mabel giggled and asked, “So, how can you get me back to my family?” Luz gave it a moment’s thought and said, “Well, I guess we could take you to Eda and have her send you home, but she’ll be going home soon and it’s kinda…” The girls screamed as a huge guard jumped in front of them. He glared down at the humans and said, “Human previously associated with Eda the Owl Lady, you’re hereby under arrest!” “Not today, sucka!” Luz yelled, threw down one of Eda’s smoke bombs, and grabbed Mabel’s wrist. “Come on! I know where to go!” “Crazy monsters, criminals, smoke bombs, demons… I LOVE IT HERE!” Mabel cheered as she was fleeing with her new friends. ~~~~~~~~~~ Stan huffed, catching his breath, with his hands on his knees. Ford helped Dipper up cautiously, scanning him over for broken bones from when the monster swung his tail at the boy and slammed him against a tree, but apart from being shaken up, he was fine. Now that the Stone-Reptilian was gone, the Pines men were free to worry about the most important thing in their whole world. “MABEL?!” Stan screamed and looked around wildly for the rift that took her away. “MABEL! MABEL, SWEETIE!” “Mabel!” Ford called out. “Mabel, can you hear us?!” “MABEL! MABEL!” Stan screamed and ignored his stinging eyes. Dipper’s own brown eyes were aching, too, but he refused to be seen as weak and he powered through. “Did… did that thing… g-g-get her?” “No.” Ford said firmly. “I saw it. She fell through… some sort of door, or a rift.” “A-A door?” “It was rectangular like one, but it was hard to tell.” “The Crawlspace!” Dipper gasped and slapped his forehead. “Don’t the entrances change randomly through Gravity Falls? What if she fell through and is down at the black market?” “What, you mean she’s probably surrounded by dangerous monsters in some freaky market?” Stan asked. “It’s a likely possibility.” Ford speculated, holding his cleft chin. “Scour the area. If it was an entrance to the Crawlspace, one will show up again soon.” The three men split up, relatively close, and searched for an anomaly. Maybe a hole in a tree or in the ground, what might have been passed as a bird’s nest or a groundhog’s home could actually be an entrance. Stan was checking some bushes when he thought he heard a strange noise and he looked ahead. A rectangular white light appeared on an oak tree and soon an owl with an empty sack in its beak hopped out. Stan gasped and thought that this was the doorway that took his little girl. Ford saw his twin run out of the corner of his eye and then disappear through the hole. “Stanley, wait!” He called and ran towards him, disappearing, too. Then the doorway was gone. Dipper looked around nervously. “Hello? Guys?” He paused, letting it sink in that, once again, he was alone. “I swear if she’s at MAB3L again…” ~~~~~~~~~~ Stan had stopped. Ford then accidently ran into him and they both fell forward. “Sixer, get off!” “Shh!” Ford slapped a polydactyl hand over his brother’s mouth, which made him grumble, but before Stan could lick his hand in response, he heard what Ford was hearing. “I’ll give you fifty snails for the whole lot.” A laugh-filled snort followed. “It’s seventy-five, kid. Take it or leave it.” That voice… something was familiar about that laugh. There was grumbling and what sounded like items being collected. Stan and Ford exchanged looks and slowly got up. After looking around the tent, they peered out of the crack in the curtains to see an odd market. They awed at the sight of dozens of weird creatures. One looked like a turquoise hairless-cat. One looked like a pig with green eyes and it breathed fire on a piece of meat on a stick to cook it for a snack. A kid with pointy ears dropped a basket full of eyeballs and scrambled to pick them up. Ford grinned excitedly like a dork while Stan winced at the sight of an ice-cream eating a customer. Stan glanced to his left and he had to hold his breath to keep from gasping and blowing their cover. Wearing a tight-fitted, torn maroon dress and matching boots, gold on her chest and ears and fingers and a sharp tooth, her eyes sparkling like gold coins, a woman with big gray hair and pointy ears leaned against a table full human things and flicked through a Gold Chains for Old Men magazine with a skeptical look on her face. Stan was nearly as pale as she was when she snorted another laugh and flipped a page. “Hah! Not a bad read. Better than that kindling Luz keeps around.” She mumbled and made herself comfortable in her chair, waiting for another customer, one leg crossed over the other and she lightly kicked it as she read. Stan swallowed. There was no way. No possible way… then again, given everything weird that’s happened to him, from freaky portal, to demon triangles, to gnomes and unicorns and sirens and krakens, even to a full-blown Weirdmageddon, should he really be all that surprised that faith would bite him in the butt like this? Ford glanced down at his twin and found he could read him like an open book. “Stanley…” He hissed. The lady straightened in her seat and looked up from the magazine, listening. Now it was Stan’s turn to cover Ford’s mouth. They were still, waiting for the ady to find them, but she shrugged casually and continued to read. The men backed away, out of sight, and were each on one knee, facing each other, as they whispered. “Sixer, where the heck are we? The Crawlspace?” “I’m not sure.” Ford hissed. “I have never seen these types of anomalies before. I suppose it’s possible they hide here during the day and I had never seen them at night, but… this place feels off. To summarize, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” “Fine, but when what do we do about Mabel?” “Our objection is still the same. Let’s just keep a low profile and try to find her.” The twins froze when the curtain was thrown open and the lady stood before them. She immediately sneered down at them. “If you amateur pickpockets think you can…” But then she stopped, for several reasons. One: these creatures were clearly old, about her age, and so unless they had a sudden career change, they were not amateurs. Two: as a human expert and a teacher and hostess of a human, she instantly recognized these two big-eared creatures as humans. Three: something about the one in the white shirt and red hat was very familiar. “No… way…” She narrowed her golden eyes. Stan was now confident that his memory wasn’t flawed; the way she reacted to seeing him, recognizing him, confirmed that he knew her. Before he could do anything, she grabbed each twin by the ear and pinched; they were at her mercy and receiving flashbacks from when their mother was angry with them. “You two got some explaining to do.” The lady sneered. “Gah! Let us go, crazy old bat!” Stan barked as she dragged them out from the tent and made them sit on barrels for stools. “Who are you calling old, human?” The lady sneered and crossed her arms over her chest. “Just tell me what you think you’re doing here.” “Begging your pardon on our introduction,” Ford said coldly, but then softened as he and his brother did have an important mission. “But our grandniece is missing. We believe she came through here.” And he pulled out a picture of Mabel hugging a stuffed-penguin from his wallet and showed it to her. The lady peered down at the photo and said, “Sorry, old-timers, I haven’t seen anyone like that around here.” “Now, how can we trust you, Marilyn.” Stan sneered, crossing his arms over his chest. Ford’s eyes widened as he pocketed his picture. He was rendered speechless for a moment. “Oh, like you’re one to talk about honesty, Stan.” She deride. “You two know each other?!” Ford gasped, looking from his brother to the stranger rapidly like a game of tennis. “She’s your ex-wife?!” The lady snorted a laugh and sighed happily. “Ah, good times, huh?” “Not really.” Stan sneered and stood. “You still owe me five hundred bucks!” “At least you got your car back, Grumpy.” The lady teased and patted his cheek; he swatted her hand away in response and growled like an angry pitbull. “If you want my help finding your girl then play nice.” “So, you honestly didn’t see her.” Stan repeated with a raised eyebrow. “Hey, I may be a conwoman, a pickpocket, and the most powerful witch you’ll ever meet, but I wouldn’t lie if it was gonna endanger some kid.” The lady snapped her fingers and all of the human collectibles floated and gathered into a green cloth, tied up like a hobo’s luggage. She pulled out a staff and put the bag through it, making it easy to carry. Eda whistled and the little owl flew to her and landed on her staff and turned into wood. “Come along, humans, we’ll find your niece and get you two home.” Ford followed the lady and decided to be the “nice” one since Stan was obviously too salty to be one; someone had to be nice to the lady that was going to help them find Mabel. “Thank you, Marilyn.” “Oh, right. That’s not my real name…” “Knew it.” “... you’re a fool to give your real name to a casino in Vegas. It’s Edalyn, but just call me Eda. Or your worst nightmare.” “Whatever you say, toots.” Stan growled as they walked down the street. “So, Eda,” Ford cut in to try to cut the tension between the two. “What exactly is this place, and what are you?” Eda stopped suddenly and turned around, wearing a proud grin. She stabbed her staff on the ground with a small bang, making the owl come to life, the sack hanging by her fist, and she proclaimed, “I am known as the Owl Lady, the most powerful witch here on the Boiling Isles!” “A witch?” Stan laughed. “More like a b…” “I am a feared, respected, vigorous force to be reckoned with!” Eda went on and let go of the staff so it floated like a witch’s broomstick. “Come on, old-timers, let’s get a bird’s eye-view to find your girl.” They each grabbed the staff when Eda sat upon it and yelled with fear as she had them fly up in the air, leaving the old twins to dangle in the air. “GAAAAAAAH!” “EDA!” Stan yelled. “Put us down!” “That can be arranged.” Eda said cunningly and swooped down quickly. With the air drying Eda’s eyes and forming tears and the brother holding onto the staff (and each other) for dear life, all three were yelling, one with delight, two with fright. “STANLEY!” Ford shouted. “PLEASE try not to piss off your ex-wife!” Eda laughed and at the very last second, right before the men would crash into the ground, she flew them up into the sky. “Ah, don’t worry, I won’t let you two knuckleheads get hurt.” They flew softer and calmer above the Boiling Isles and the humans awed at the scene. In the carcass of a monster, by the sea, the Bones of the Isles sat snug in the midst of chaos. Eda floated to allow the men a moment to take in the scenery, smiling down at their round brown eyes. “It’s beautiful.” Ford admired. “Yup, not too shabby.” Eda commented casually. “It’s not much, but it’s home.” “We know what that’s like.” Stan muttered. “Speaking of which,” Eda said casually. “Where did you two say you were from?” “We didn’t. Gravity Falls, Oregon.” Ford answered, keeping an eye out for Mabel. “Oh, I’ve heard rumors about that place.” Eda said as she flew calmly over the town. “My door has a bad habit of appearing there way too often. I need more variety in my human collectibles.” “So, you steal our junk and try to sell it for a great price?” Stan asked; he sounded a little impressed. “That and I sell potions on the weekdays. When I’m not mentoring my student. Enough chit-chat, see your girl down there?” The men took a few more minutes to look, as well as Eda, but there was no sign of her. “No.” Ford’s voice dripped with concern. “Eda, what are the chances she was kidnapped or hurt?” “Oh, that probably didn’t happen to her.” The witch said calmly. “If she’s not safe she probably got eaten or taken by Warden Wrath.” “WHAT?!” “Relax, Sixer,” Stan said, confident in his pumpkin. “She’s our little fighter, she’ll be fine.” Eda snorted. “Sixer?” “It’s Stanford, actually.” His face was a little red over the fact that he couldn’t hide his six-fingered hands, too busy holding the magic staff to keep from falling. “Meh, I’ve seen weirder.” Eda looked like she truly didn’t care how many fingers he had; Ford appreciated that. “Well, I’ve got a great tracker at home.” The Owl Lady said and started to fly towards the red forest. “Why don’t we go pick him up and see if he can help us out. Got anything the girl held?” “Yes,” When the men landed on their feet and Eda hopped next to them, Ford pulled out his wallet again and took out a folded-up, hand-drawn picture of Stan and Ford on a boat, a gift from Mabel while they were apart that she had mailed to them. “Aw, that’s so cute.” The witch cooed. “Who knew all Pines men were putty in girls’ hands.” She laughed at her own joke and shook her head. “Ah, keep moving, boys.” Stan hurried to catch up and he walked next to Eda with narrow eyes, ignoring the way her odd golden fang sparkled, how her eyes gleamed with spunk, how she held herself up high with pride. “So, you’re gonna answer some questions for me…” “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.” “If you’re a witch, what were you doing in Las Vegas?” “Hey, a witch’s gotta make some gold, too.” Eda shrugged as she smiled. “I haven’t exactly kept a clean record here so making a living takes a bit of extra effort, but it’s much for fun and unpredictable, the way life's supposed to be.” Stan raised an eyebrow at two things: the fact his ex was a criminal in this world too, and her philosophy. “I can respect that, seeing how I was there for the same reasons.” “I know.” Eda rolled her eyes teasingly. “You wouldn’t shut up about how you were gonna make it big and show the world what this big lug could do.” And she elbowed Stan, which he chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. “Heh. Yeah, what can I say, I’m a real loud-mouth. Say what’s on my mind.” “Hey, nothing wrong with being brutally honest to make up for lying, am I right?” Eda said with a shrug. “So, was your hair fake back then, or…” “No, no, it was real. I was really proud of my hair back in the day, flaming red and wild.” “Looks pretty good now. Love it, in fact. Big and bold, hard to miss.” “Hey, you aged pretty well yourself, handsome.” Ford smiled as he watched the exes tease and pick on each other. If a compliment was given, it dripped with sarcasm and there was no guarantee that it was sincere, but they must have seen a gleam in their eyes or felt a “vibe” that Ford didn’t experience, because the conversation progressed well as they walked through the forest. Ford was happy to see Stan get along fairly well with this woman and wondered if this would go exceptionally better than the whole McCorkle incident. They emerged from the woods and found a large house standing by some cliffs leading to an ocean. It was about as far from the seas as Pines Pawns was all those years ago. The house was big, maybe bigger than the Mystery Shack (probably not if counting the basement-floors) with a big stain-glass window that reminded Stan of a cat’s eye and Ford of Bill’s eye, but then they both individually remembered Eda’s title and realized it was probably representing an owl’s eye. A weather-vane with an owl sat on top of the house, a broken-down tower stood behind, and an owl’s head was on the door. The humans were startled, but they quickly recovered, again having experienced much weirder than a live owl-head on a door. “Girl knows how to keep a theme going.” Stan commented as they approached. “Oh, boy!” The owl on the door hooted. “More company! Maybe they wanna hear some of my stories!” “Not a chance, Hooty.” Eda quipped. “Is King still home? We need his help, and we might want Luz’s too while we’re at it.” “They’re both telling stories to that new human. The one with the pretty owl sweater.” “Wait, what?!” The three old people asked and Hooty swung open the door. Luz was holding King on her lap on the couch, sitting with Mabel as all three were laughing. Even King was rolling around and holding his little fluffy body with glee. Mabel’s back was to the door and she resumed her storytelling as she wiped a tear under her eye. “So then I look down at Dipper and see that he’s still got his socks on!” Luz cackled a laugh and held her head one-handed, her other arm still holding King, but it was to no avail as the demon fell off from all the laughing. Eda, Ford, and Stan smiled as the girls were having fun. They had no idea how they found each other, but it was better for them to be here, safe and happy, than to have the newbie be someone’s meal. Luz fanned her reddening face and finally noticed the company. “Hi, Eda. Sorry, but she was lost and needs our help.” Mabel turned, on her knees on the couch, but grinned with a gasp. “GUYS!” And she hopped over the arm of the couch for her grunkles. “Mabel!” They opened their arms and got on one knee for their girl. Mabel ran into their hold and they hugged her tightly, relieved to be with her again and to find her more than okay. “What did I tell you about scaring me like that, pumpkin?!” Stan asked as he held her with all of his might. “You didn’t tell me, Grunkle Stan.” “Oh, right.” “We’re just so happy to find you alright, my dear.” Ford loosened his grip just enough to look up at Luz, who was smiling admirably at the reunion. “And I see you’ve made some friends.” Mabel let go and nodded. “Yeah! That’s Luz! Luz, these are my grunkles! Stan and Ford!” “Nice to meet you guys.” Luz said and waved politely. “Mabel said you’d come, but how did you two survive out there?” “They nearly didn’t.” Eda lied easily. “Were in the mouths of a giant giraffe when I saved their butts.” “Yeah right!” Stan barked a laugh. “Anyways, we’ve been through worse, kid.” Luz gasped excitedly. “Worse than giant bugs and centaurs with eyes on their chest and man-eating slugs and fire-breathing eye-less fangs and jealous witches?!” “Worse. I’ve punched a pterodactyl in the face and a few zombies, fallen down a Bottomless Pit, lost my hands to a witch, fought off eagles and explosions, survived giant man-eating spiders…” “Stanley, that is all impressive, but have you fought a talking chair, battled in four wars, conned an abominable snowman, outran a volcano, examined floating eyebats, been turned to gold…” “I find that hard to believe.” Eda snorted. “I believe them.” Luz said with a shrug. “You always said weird stuff leaks from this world into theirs.” “So, if you don’t mind me asking,” Ford said, stepping forward. “What exactly is this place? I’ve heard rumors of a place called the Boiling Isles, but I just thought it was a little hiding place like the Crawlspace, not an entirely new dimension.” “Nope!” Eda corrected happily. “This whole world is the Boiling Isles, a world full of despair, monsters, gross-stuff, demons, and magic.” “This place sounds so cool!” Mabel cheered. She looked at Luz and said, “No wonder you wanted to stay here. Wait! Do you have your own room?!” “Yeah! C’mon, I’ll show you!” And the girls ran off with Luz scratching King’s tummy and leaving him to nap on the floor, tired from laughing. Eda plopped down on the couch and gestured for the men to do the same. “I’d offer refreshments but all we have is apple blood and some disgusting beverage Luz likes called orange juice.” Stan looked up at the wanted poster of Eda and the reward promised for her capture. He smiled, impressed and interested. “We’re okay, thank you, Eda.” Ford said. “If you don’t mind me asking, our niece said something about Luz choosing to stay here?” “Yeah, that’s right.” Eda reached under her couch-cushion and rummaged as she spoke. “Kid came through my door when Owlbert brought over some little treasures to sell. Sweet girl. Kinda naive and gullible, but clever in her own right and she’s a fast learner. Stubborn with the forces of positivity.” Stan snorted. “Heh. We know someone like that.” “She said she didn’t fit in at home.” Eda finally found what she was looking for and pulled out a wrinkled, crumpled up pamphlet at read, Reality Check Summer Camp: Think Inside the Box. “Don’t really understand some of this human stuff, but I figured it must be pretty bad if it made a kid not wanna go home, so I read over it and this place sounds awful! Totally squandered any creativity or individualism! Her own mother was sending her here!” Eda let Ford look it over and she shrugged off the rant. “Anyway, she said she wanted to stay and she was willing to work for it, so I took her in as my apprentice for the summer and now she’s learning how to be a witch.” “Hm, sounds a lot better than kidnapping.” Stan approved with his arms crossed over his chest. “This place is completely horrible.” Ford commented about the summer camp. “They teach kids how to appropriate public radio!” “AM or FM?” “Both.” “Ouch.” “So, what exactly are you doing with such a cute girl, Eight-Ball?” Eda asked, getting Stan’s attention. “And what is a grunkle?” She snorted with a smile. “She’s our grandniece.” Stan said proudly, puffing out his chest. “We’re her great-uncles. Her grunkles.” “Aw, who knew you were such a softie?” “I am not!” “You watched over five hours of video-tutorials on how to braid hair.” Ford said behind the pamphlet. “She asked me to braid her hair and it bothered me that I couldn’t do it!” Eda cackled and touched Stan’s shoulder. His eyes followed and he smiled at her cute laugh. “Aw, you’re worse than King.” King peeked an eye at her and sneered, “One more passive aggressive comment and I’ll…” “That’s not a passive aggressive comment.” Eda said as she picked up the little goofball. “I can do better than that.” “Huh, and here I was thinking that was just one of Luz’s toys.” Stan teased. “Hey!” King stood on the couch by Eda’s side and pointed a bony paw at the old man. “Since you’re a human, I’ll let you walk away with a warning, but have it be known that I’m the King of Demons and shall one day drink the fear of those who mock me!” Ford folded the pamphlet and observed King cautiously. He didn’t like… his voice. His voice sent shivers down the old scientist’s spine. Stan snorted. “Sorry, pipsqueak, but I’ve faced worse demons than you.” “Oh, yeah, like what?” King asked. The girls came back, smiling and holding hands, and Luz asked, “Eda, can we please please PLEASE have a sleepover?! I want to show Mabel the new light spell I learned and show her how to properly scratch a demon’s tummy.” Ford chuckled and stood. “I’m sorry, ladies, but we really should be heading back. I’m sure Dipper is worried sick.” Mabel gasped with horror. “Oh, NO! Dipper!” “Oh, hey, don’t worry.” Luz eased. “You two are totally welcome here anytime you want.” “Aw, thanks, Luz.” Mabel hugged her and said, “I promise I’ll bring Dip-Dip next time. He’d love it here! And he could tell you all about the Manotaurs and the weird copy-machine.” Eda and Stan stood up, too, and the Owl Lady had her arms crossed over her chest. “Well, looks like we’ll be seeing each other again pretty soon. You okay with them hanging out?” Stan shrugged and pocketed his hands in his jeans. “Yeah, sure. Good friends are kinda rare these days. Gotta hold onto ‘em and never let ‘em go.” “Agreed.” Eda said and saw them exchanging those odd codes on their glowing rectangles. “Well, have your girl tell my girl when to open the door and I’ll see what I can do.” And she held out a hand to Stan. He hesitated (not just because of whose hand it was, but because shaking hands always seemed to lead to something bad, but maybe this time will be different), but he took it and shook it gently. “Yeah, and if your girl never needs a break in the human world, have her tell my girl.” Eda smiled at Stan and shook Ford’s hand, as well. She pulled the key out of her hair and unlocked the door, making it appear and swing open. Mabel skipped to her great-uncles and waved goodbye to Luz, who waved back, and she went with Ford through the door for home. Stan stole one last look at Eda, who winked at him, and he disappeared with a pink face.

~~~~~~~~~~

Author’s Note: OKAY, first things first, when it comes to fic, I personally don't really like crossovers. Crossovers can be a fun NON-CANON crossover for animation or actors. I get more enjoyment over fun fanart than I so of fics, because I like mine more plot-driven and it's hard to get a good story going just because you wants certain characters to mingle. HOWEVER, I find Gravity Falls and The Owl House just fit so well together! Why? #1: Alex Hirsch and Dana Terrace (the creators) are dating and Dana Terrace is responsible for the awesome Ducktakes reboot (season 1, anyway) AND the famous Not What He Seems scene. So having such a strong connection creativity wise of the shows is very apparent, more so than the other shows. #2: Evidence that supports these connections. Both shows have referenced each other and a theory goes that Eda and Stan were once married for less than a day. (plz check this video for more) And #3: ... I ship it pretty damn hard, okay? So I hope you guys will enjoy this fun little crossover as much as me! And thank you so much for reading!

#gravity falls #the owl house #eda the owl lady #stan pines #luz noceda #mabel pines #ford pines #dipper pines #king of demons #crossover #fallen owls #fanfiction #oh boy #plz don't hate me but i had to #im shipping trash #its official #remember bitches love comments #and yes i am taking suggestions #what trouble should these silver foxes get into?

[inikavulpixelreviews]

Let’s Talk About Pokemon - Halloween Special

Boys and girls of every age Wouldn't you like to see something strange?

Come with us and you will see This, our town of Halloween

This is Halloween, this is Halloween! Pumpkins scream in the dead of night

This is Halloween, everybody make a scene! Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright

It's our town, everybody scream! In this town of Halloween

I am the one hiding under your bed Teeth ground sharp and eyes glowing red

I am the one hiding under your stairs Fingers like snakes and spiders in my hair

This is Halloween, this is Halloween!

Halloween! Halloween! 

Halloween! Halloween!

In this town we call home Everyone hail to the pumpkin song

In this town, don't we love it now? Everybody's waiting for the next surprise

'Round that corner, man hiding in the trash can Something's waiting now to pounce, and how you'll

Scream! 

This is Halloween Red 'n' black, and slimy green

Aren't you scared?

Well, that's just fine Say it once, say it twice Take a chance and roll the dice Ride with the moon in the dead of night

Everybody scream, everybody scream!

In our town of Halloween!

I am the clown with the tear-away face Here in a flash and gone without a trace

I am the "who" in the call, "Who's there?" I am the wind blowing in your hair

I am the shadow on the moon at night Filling your dreams to the brim with fright

This is Halloween, this is Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!

Tender lumplings everywhere Life's no fun without a good scare

That's our job, but we're not mean In our town of Halloween

In this town Don't we love it now?

Everybody's waiting for the next surprise

Skeleton Jack might catch you in the back And scream like a banshee Make you jump out of your skin

This is Halloween, everybody scream Won't ya please make way for a very special guy

Our man Jack is King of the Pumpkin patch Everyone hail to the Pumpkin King, now!

This is Halloween, this is Halloween Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!

In this town we call home Everyone hail to the pumpkin song

La la la la la la la la la la (Halloween! Halloween!) La la la la la la la la la la (Halloween! Halloween!)

Ohhhh yes, today is a special day indeed! We're about to dive into not only what I'd call the four most definitively “Halloween” Pokemon in the entire series, but a group of some of my top faves in the entire franchise's history. I've never stopped appreciating Halloween, even long past growing too old to be trick-or-treating. I'm already big into Autumn as my favorite season but Halloween only escalates that aesthetic appeal.

Nothing gets me quite like that child-like spooky look. The Jack-o-lanterns, black cats, ghosts, gargoyles, and slimy critters. (And the PUMPKIN REESE'S CUPS) Obviously I'm quite into more adult-oriented  horror like Silent Hill, Creepypastas, and DOOM. But nothing beats some wholesome all-ages Halloween creepy monster creation for me. And Pokemon's of course had no shortage of that. Especially in these later Generations.

In fact, between these four I'm about to cover, Klefki, Sliggoo, Malamar, Spritzee, Honedge, Espurr, and Braixen/Delphox, Gen 6 feels like arguably the most Halloweeny Generation out there so far. Probably part-way why I'd call this my third closest to favorite Generation.

But in any case, let's get to covering these four. Yes, just as a little Halloween treat for y'all I'll cover two lines today!

708: Phantump

And right off the haunted mansion gates, we're getting treated to some James Turnery goodness! I've not brought him up in a while so I don't sound like a broken record, but for whatever it's worth, he's the designer that's made gold like Golurk and Mandibuzz as well. Sadly this and Trevenant are his only additions this time around, but I'll definitely not complain!

Phantump is just an absolutely precious little ghost kid! And that's not even an exaggeration, this thing is literally the ghost of children that got lost and died in the woods. Which of course is arguably one of the most dire-sounding Pokedex entry tidbits ever. Just something to keep in mind when you go around catching these or beating them up for experience.

Phantump is simply too cute for words though. It's trying to spook you but in a way only a child would know how, going up to you and making a little stereotypical “oooooooo!!!” ghost face and scream. It's the perfect blend of spooky and ADORABLE. I even like how the bark marks on the side of its eyes look like sleep-deprived/stressed out little eye bags. Such a tiny detail as an itty bitty little line just adds so much more personality to this thing.

Another reason I'm so excited about these four. Like Bug/Water, Grass/Ghost up until now has been something I was yearning for hardcore since like, Gen 3. There's so much potential in the type between haunted trees, jack-o-lanterns, and just generally spooky-looking woodland monsters that it pained me to see both Gen 4 and 5 go by with nothing. Ohoho, but then I got to Route 16 in my first playthrough of X to lay eyes on a wild Phantump for the first time ever and to find it's A HAUNTED STUMP! FINALLY, MY PRAYERS ANSWERED!!

Personal Score: 10/10

This literally has eaten up one page on a word document so far and we're still only on the FIRST POKEMON HERE...

709: Trevenant

Things only get spookier as we move on down to Trevenant, and god yes. I've wanted a haunted tree Pokemon for so long. It's just such a staple to Halloween, and Ents are a high-fantasy monster that have been missing from Pokemon anyways. And I'm so glad they meshed the two ideas into one here. It's even better by not just being a bipedal tree so much as a literal tree that uprooted itself and uses its hunking roots as legs. Hell yes.

Trevenant in general is just one of the coolest spooky Pokemon in the whole series. And even one of the conceptually more frightening in the entire game as well. This child spirit has grown so angry to those that want to harm the forest, that this thing can root itself to bend a whole forest to its will, forcing anyone polluting or chopping down trees in its forest to get lost and never be able to leave. But to other wild Pokemon and those that respect the forests, it is kind to.

In fact, this Pokemon has one of the spookier moves in the whole game. Its signature move, Forest’s Curse, changes the opponent’s type to Grass. Seems simple and innocent enough on the surface. But there’s a ridiculous amount of implications with this move. Forest’s Curse. Ever so somewhat implying that Trevenant may turn its human victims into trees themselves, permanent fixtures in Trevenant’s forest. That and there’s a ridiculous amount of existential dread in the thought of being polymorphed into an inanimate object. Becoming just another tree in the forst, which no other person would be able to distinguish you from any other tree.

Trevenant is just a nearly-perfect tree ghost. The decrepit barely-alive tree look, the cool, somewhat pale color scheme. The rad branch-antlers. The aforementioned root legs. The piercing red cycloptic eye. How the breaks in the bark for an unhinged-jaw kind of mouth look. This is a Pokemon clearly designed by Halloween lovers and for Halloween lovers.

Personal Score: 10/10

This Pokemon was MADE FOR ME.

710: Pumpkaboo

Oh, but the Halloween goodness doesn't stop there. Imagine my delight when I continued exploring around the routes I found Phantump on only to encounter THIS THING. THIS CUTIE. THIS BLACK-CAT-JACK-O-LANTERN MONSTER. I've wanted a pumpkin critter in Pokemon for about as long as I can remember. Ever since I’ve become so obsessed with Halloween. Things like Cacnea, Spiritomb, and maybe even Lampent/Chandelure have given us fairly close approximations but nothing to exactly hit the specifically, undoubtedly, undeniably Halloween mark that is a clear as horrid night Jack-o-lantern. And the wait has more than paid off.

The one sole flaw I can think of with Pumpkaboo is that it'll probably the peak of Halloween creatures we'll get in Pokemon PROBABLY for good. Like, I don't know if we'll ever get more Halloweeny than a thing that is half black cat, half bat (and pretty much half vampire), half pumpkin. It's impossible. You can't out-Halloween that in a single cohesive creature. You just merged three to four of Halloween's biggest icons into ONE creature so seamlessly. It even comes with a signature move Trick-or-Treat!! Which does what else but turn its opponents into fellow GHOST TYPES. GHHHH.

Pumpkaboo is just a brilliantly unexpected twist on the usual jack-o-lantern monster. There's a countless number of em that have the pumpkin as the head with the usual face carved out of the front. And as much as those never get old for me, Pumpkaboo is just such a fun and unique take on it! The pumpkin is more like a body; still with little eyespots carved into it, but the head is poofing out of the top of the pumpkin, looking like a merging between a black cat and a vampire bat. Like I've been saying, you've fused so much Halloween into one adorably poutty and yet clean and coherent critter than I can't handle it. I'm gonna be reduced to a dribbling MESS over here.

And as a fun bonus, it even comes in different sizes! And with slight stat changes to go with those sizes. You can use the smaller and less durable but faster tiny Pumpkaboos or the huge, bulky, but slow ones.

This is just ENTIRELY Halloween goodness. And I'm being spoiled by Gamefreak over here. Wanted a Grass/Ghost for years and years? Here, have TWO LINES OF TWO EACH. Jack-o-lantern a hard want on your Pokemon wishlist? Here's a little bcatkin to absolutely ERADICATE my expectations. This is so perfect for me I would almost half suspect Junichi Masuda himself to come to my doorstep and tell me to never ask them for anything ever again.

Personal Score: 10/10

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

HAMBOLEEN!!!

HANDBAMBOWEEN!!!!!!!!!!

711: Gourgeist

We’re finally at our final addition on this spooky parade. Sadly Gourgeist doesn't make a bumbling buffoon out of me quite like Pumpkaboo does, but I still love the thing a lot. It's still a different and cool flavor of squash monster, just fairly different from Pumpkaboo's. It's a little LESS genius of a mish-mash too but oh well.

This like we're looking at something of a creature I liked to look at as more of a giant melty candlestick hanging out of a gourd. May or may not be the intention, but y'know.

Gourgeist is still a very lovable Halloween monster in its own merits! It's more or less got the same face, and I love me tiny little fangs. (Even if they only show with its mouth open) The hair-hands are also really neat, and generally are a monster feature that doesn't get used enough. And the fringe covering one eye too. It's like a Hot Topic brand of Halloween!

And it does get a much more traditional pumpkin carving face too. It's just different ENOUGH to not be a bit odd how Pumpkaboo looks one way with Gourgeist totally another. You could somewhat even see it as a face-marking adaptation, like how many moths adapt a pattern on their wings that look like a giant face to scare off predators. It would've been nice to see the cat-bat parts played up in a Pumpkaboo evolution, but Gourgeist has enough goodness going on its own where I'm not upset of course.

I just generally love its shape too. A real odd body shape between the arms being on its head and the pear-shaped silhouette to it. It's easily one of the Pokemon I have the most fun drawing when I find the mood to. It's just so. Drawable. And pretty. Oh hey, that's another thing! We don't have that many pretty-creeps in the Pokedex yet. So there's another niche Gourgeist can fill!

Personal Score: 10/10

Everyone! Everyone wins!

Oh and one more thing! I don't talk about shinies a lot in these reviews obviously but I wanna highlight these just because on top of being some of my top favorite Pokemon in the whole series, they even have some of my top favorite shinies in the whole series!! Phantump and Trevenant not only rock the absolutely beautiful white with red accents color scheme, but that's actually based on a real tree! White aspens are indeed white-bark trees that have leaves that grow red in the fall. So PRETTY.

And while Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist's aren't seemingly based on anything in particular other than some alternative jack-o-lantern decoration colors, you just can't go wrong with black, purple, and yellow. So good.

So that's only BONUS POINTS for some already glorious Pokemon.

Happy Halloween everybody! Stay spooky!

[Archive]

#Pokemon Reviews #Phantump #Trevenant #Pumpkaboo #Gourgeist #Pokemon #Pokemon Halloween #708 Phantump #709 Trevenant #710 Pumpkaboo #711 Gourgeist

[statusreview]

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch

Beach house stuff is flying along, and we owe you guys a giant post (in the meantime you can see some pics on Instagram and Facebook) but we have some breaking porch news, which is that it no longer looks neglected and abandoned. Plus I got a little “creative” with the bushes so they’ll never die on me again. I don’t have a great “before” photo because it wasn’t something I ever thought to capture for posterity, but think dirty old doormat, dead plants, discolored brick, and spiderwebs (but not of the Halloween-decoration variety).

One thing that tipped us off to the problem was taking our annual First Day of School photos out in front of the door. We were looking at this year’s photos next to the previous year’s photos to see how much the kids grew, but another thing that caught our attention was the tragic progression of our fading front door mat. It’s like that thing was just begging to be put out of its misery, but it happened so slowly we didn’t really notice until we were reminded how it used to look.

So I ordered another extra-wide mat (this is the one we got). If you have sidelights or a double door, I can’t tell you how strongly I recommend a wider doormat. They can be a pain to track down, and aren’t super cheap (ours is the 30 x 48″ one for $79) but we found that any normal sized ones looked kind of dinky and unbalanced on our porch.

But the real stars of this refresh are the two evergreen trees in the black planters. We’ve had THE WORST time keeping plants alive here – so dead plants have been flanking the front door for 90% of the last 4.5 years. Every year we would buy something, it would fry from the insane direct sunlight our porch gets, and then the sad remains of the dearly departed plant would sit in the planter for a few months until we’d lather, rinse, and repeat that process. I tried annuals like creeping jenny and petunias (burned and died). Evergreens like boxwoods and dwarf spruces (burned and died even faster).  I’ve tried setting an alarm on my phone to water things every day. I’ve tried the upside-down wine bottle trick to water things. It was like a curse that refused to be broken… until now.

These evergreens can’t ever die BECAUSE THEY’RE FAKE!! After years of trying to make something (anything!) live in these planters I feel LIBERATED! These faux 36″ evergreens came into my life at the perfect time. I was at my wits end. And even though I worried they’d look lame and plastic-y, I was willing to roll the dice and try them.

You have to fluff them up when they arrive (they look sort of flat right out of the box) but they’re SO CONVINCING! The color is right. The large size is awesome. The price is way less than I’ve paid for all the things that have died on me in the past. I’m basically in love with these bushes and if loving them is wrong I don’t want to be right.

And yes, I plopped the little black pot that each tree comes in right into the dirt of our larger black planters (these are similar black planters if you’re looking). The real dirt around them just ads to the realism ;)

The last of the three things that whipped our porch back into shape was more subtle (which is my way of saying it was just deferred maintenance on our part). Since we had our pressure washer out to clean the brick on the back of the house after ripping off the deck, John sprayed down the front porch while he was at it because he wants to spray everything with the pressure washer.  Again, I don’t have a great “before” of this, but you can see the grime on the brick steps in this photo I found below.

There’s also this picture I took to show off my new fake evergreens on InstaStories. Look how green and mildewy the white railing looks. Yeesh.

We haven’t pressure washed this area since before we moved in over 4 years ago, so it was well overdue. The before and afters were pretty similar to what you saw in this post, but it was actually the first time we ever pressure washed the stone aggregate walkway. It’s one of those things you don’t realize you need until you see the difference it makes (in the photo below John had just done the outline and the diagonal stripe to show the improvement). How crazy is that difference?!

So this is how the porch looks, thanks to our new NEVER GONNA DIE plants, our new not-faded extra wide doormat, and a little stone & brick facial (aka: power washing).

I also have some percolating plans to update the portico a bit more, with chunkier trim around the triangle and squared off columns, kind of like this porch, designed by Lasley Brahaney that I found here (but I’d love to keep our Chippendale railings – so not this exactly).

In the meantime I’ll take the fact that it no longer looks like it’s hosting a spider meet & greet for the surrounding five counties. Although we did dress it up for Halloween (because fake spooky things beat ten thousand actual spiders).

Clearly a lot of this stuff is just seasonal, but if the kids have any say, the chihuahua skeleton (which we’ve affectionately named Skeleburger) will be there year-round. We also added a few pumpkins that we picked out with the kids and a few quirky “animal friends” (I can’t find an identical owl to link to, but this one would be awesome for Halloween too).

We’ve had this ceramic white rabbit a while (he’s out year round just to send the “ceramic animals are always welcome here” message to the neighbors) but he works for Halloween too. Although he’s definitely out-creeped by the black feather crow and our floppy little black feather wreath.

I know what you’re going to ask. How does Burger feel about Skeleburger. Does he love him? Does he loathe him? Well, Burger’s reaction can best be described as aloof and unimpressed.

Whenever he sees him he’s all, “Oh, it’s you. How boring.” He doesn’t just strut or sashay by. He makes a point of being straight up unimpressed. Sometimes he stops and yawns. This time he freaking stopped and stretched right in front of him. Like, “Look how long and flexible I am. You can’t even move. And why do you have ears if you’re a skeleton?!” It was a true demonstration of dog dominance.

So that’s what the porch is looking like these days. The spiderwebs might come back, and the mat might eventually fade, but I’m pretty sure the bushes are going to outlive us all.

Psst- Wanna see more outdoor updates & posts about naaaature? Here are a whole bunch from the archives. 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch appeared first on Young House Love.

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch published first on http://ift.tt/2r6hzQy

[endlessarchite]

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch

Beach house stuff is flying along, and we owe you guys a giant post (in the meantime you can see some pics on Instagram and Facebook) but we have some breaking porch news, which is that it no longer looks neglected and abandoned. Plus I got a little “creative” with the bushes so they’ll never die on me again. I don’t have a great “before” photo because it wasn’t something I ever thought to capture for posterity, but think dirty old doormat, dead plants, discolored brick, and spiderwebs (but not of the Halloween-decoration variety).

One thing that tipped us off to the problem was taking our annual First Day of School photos out in front of the door. We were looking at this year’s photos next to the previous year’s photos to see how much the kids grew, but another thing that caught our attention was the tragic progression of our fading front door mat. It’s like that thing was just begging to be put out of its misery, but it happened so slowly we didn’t really notice until we were reminded how it used to look.

So I ordered another extra-wide mat (this is the one we got). If you have sidelights or a double door, I can’t tell you how strongly I recommend a wider doormat. They can be a pain to track down, and aren’t super cheap (ours is the 30 x 48″ one for $79) but we found that any normal sized ones looked kind of dinky and unbalanced on our porch.

But the real stars of this refresh are the two evergreen trees in the black planters. We’ve had THE WORST time keeping plants alive here – so dead plants have been flanking the front door for 90% of the last 4.5 years. Every year we would buy something, it would fry from the insane direct sunlight our porch gets, and then the sad remains of the dearly departed plant would sit in the planter for a few months until we’d lather, rinse, and repeat that process. I tried annuals like creeping jenny and petunias (burned and died). Evergreens like boxwoods and dwarf spruces (burned and died even faster).  I’ve tried setting an alarm on my phone to water things every day. I’ve tried the upside-down wine bottle trick to water things. It was like a curse that refused to be broken… until now.

These evergreens can’t ever die BECAUSE THEY’RE FAKE!! After years of trying to make something (anything!) live in these planters I feel LIBERATED! These faux 36″ evergreens came into my life at the perfect time. I was at my wits end. And even though I worried they’d look lame and plastic-y, I was willing to roll the dice and try them.

You have to fluff them up when they arrive (they look sort of flat right out of the box) but they’re SO CONVINCING! The color is right. The large size is awesome. The price is way less than I’ve paid for all the things that have died on me in the past. I’m basically in love with these bushes and if loving them is wrong I don’t want to be right.

And yes, I plopped the little black pot that each tree comes in right into the dirt of our larger black planters (these are similar black planters if you’re looking). The real dirt around them just ads to the realism ;)

The last of the three things that whipped our porch back into shape was more subtle (which is my way of saying it was just deferred maintenance on our part). Since we had our pressure washer out to clean the brick on the back of the house after ripping off the deck, John sprayed down the front porch while he was at it because he wants to spray everything with the pressure washer.  Again, I don’t have a great “before” of this, but you can see the grime on the brick steps in this photo I found below.

There’s also this picture I took to show off my new fake evergreens on InstaStories. Look how green and mildewy the white railing looks. Yeesh.

We haven’t pressure washed this area since before we moved in over 4 years ago, so it was well overdue. The before and afters were pretty similar to what you saw in this post, but it was actually the first time we ever pressure washed the stone aggregate walkway. It’s one of those things you don’t realize you need until you see the difference it makes (in the photo below John had just done the outline and the diagonal stripe to show the improvement). How crazy is that difference?!

So this is how the porch looks, thanks to our new NEVER GONNA DIE plants, our new not-faded extra wide doormat, and a little stone & brick facial (aka: power washing).

I also have some percolating plans to update the portico a bit more, with chunkier trim around the triangle and squared off columns, kind of like this porch, designed by Lasley Brahaney that I found here (but I’d love to keep our Chippendale railings – so not this exactly).

In the meantime I’ll take the fact that it no longer looks like it’s hosting a spider meet & greet for the surrounding five counties. Although we did dress it up for Halloween (because fake spooky things beat ten thousand actual spiders).

Clearly a lot of this stuff is just seasonal, but if the kids have any say, the chihuahua skeleton (which we’ve affectionately named Skeleburger) will be there year-round. We also added a few pumpkins that we picked out with the kids and a few quirky “animal friends” (I can’t find an identical owl to link to, but this one would be awesome for Halloween too).

We’ve had this ceramic white rabbit a while (he’s out year round just to send the “ceramic animals are always welcome here” message to the neighbors) but he works for Halloween too. Although he’s definitely out-creeped by the black feather crow and our floppy little black feather wreath.

I know what you’re going to ask. How does Burger feel about Skeleburger. Does he love him? Does he loathe him? Well, Burger’s reaction can best be described as aloof and unimpressed.

Whenever he sees him he’s all, “Oh, it’s you. How boring.” He doesn’t just strut or sashay by. He makes a point of being straight up unimpressed. Sometimes he stops and yawns. This time he freaking stopped and stretched right in front of him. Like, “Look how long and flexible I am. You can’t even move. And why do you have ears if you’re a skeleton?!” It was a true demonstration of dog dominance.

So that’s what the porch is looking like these days. The spiderwebs might come back, and the mat might eventually fade, but I’m pretty sure the bushes are going to outlive us all.

Psst- Wanna see more outdoor updates & posts about naaaature? Here are a whole bunch from the archives. 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch appeared first on Young House Love.

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch published first on http://ift.tt/2qxZz2j

[truereviewpage]

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch

Beach house stuff is flying along, and we owe you guys a giant post (in the meantime you can see some pics on Instagram and Facebook) but we have some breaking porch news, which is that it no longer looks neglected and abandoned. Plus I got a little “creative” with the bushes so they’ll never die on me again. I don’t have a great “before” photo because it wasn’t something I ever thought to capture for posterity, but think dirty old doormat, dead plants, discolored brick, and spiderwebs (but not of the Halloween-decoration variety).

One thing that tipped us off to the problem was taking our annual First Day of School photos out in front of the door. We were looking at this year’s photos next to the previous year’s photos to see how much the kids grew, but another thing that caught our attention was the tragic progression of our fading front door mat. It’s like that thing was just begging to be put out of its misery, but it happened so slowly we didn’t really notice until we were reminded how it used to look.

So I ordered another extra-wide mat (this is the one we got). If you have sidelights or a double door, I can’t tell you how strongly I recommend a wider doormat. They can be a pain to track down, and aren’t super cheap (ours is the 30 x 48″ one for $79) but we found that any normal sized ones looked kind of dinky and unbalanced on our porch.

But the real stars of this refresh are the two evergreen trees in the black planters. We’ve had THE WORST time keeping plants alive here – so dead plants have been flanking the front door for 90% of the last 4.5 years. Every year we would buy something, it would fry from the insane direct sunlight our porch gets, and then the sad remains of the dearly departed plant would sit in the planter for a few months until we’d lather, rinse, and repeat that process. I tried annuals like creeping jenny and petunias (burned and died). Evergreens like boxwoods and dwarf spruces (burned and died even faster).  I’ve tried setting an alarm on my phone to water things every day. I’ve tried the upside-down wine bottle trick to water things. It was like a curse that refused to be broken… until now.

These evergreens can’t ever die BECAUSE THEY’RE FAKE!! After years of trying to make something (anything!) live in these planters I feel LIBERATED! These faux 36″ evergreens came into my life at the perfect time. I was at my wits end. And even though I worried they’d look lame and plastic-y, I was willing to roll the dice and try them.

You have to fluff them up when they arrive (they look sort of flat right out of the box) but they’re SO CONVINCING! The color is right. The large size is awesome. The price is way less than I’ve paid for all the things that have died on me in the past. I’m basically in love with these bushes and if loving them is wrong I don’t want to be right.

And yes, I plopped the little black pot that each tree comes in right into the dirt of our larger black planters (these are similar black planters if you’re looking). The real dirt around them just ads to the realism ;)

The last of the three things that whipped our porch back into shape was more subtle (which is my way of saying it was just deferred maintenance on our part). Since we had our pressure washer out to clean the brick on the back of the house after ripping off the deck, John sprayed down the front porch while he was at it because he wants to spray everything with the pressure washer.  Again, I don’t have a great “before” of this, but you can see the grime on the brick steps in this photo I found below.

There’s also this picture I took to show off my new fake evergreens on InstaStories. Look how green and mildewy the white railing looks. Yeesh.

We haven’t pressure washed this area since before we moved in over 4 years ago, so it was well overdue. The before and afters were pretty similar to what you saw in this post, but it was actually the first time we ever pressure washed the stone aggregate walkway. It’s one of those things you don’t realize you need until you see the difference it makes (in the photo below John had just done the outline and the diagonal stripe to show the improvement). How crazy is that difference?!

So this is how the porch looks, thanks to our new NEVER GONNA DIE plants, our new not-faded extra wide doormat, and a little stone & brick facial (aka: power washing).

I also have some percolating plans to update the portico a bit more, with chunkier trim around the triangle and squared off columns, kind of like this porch, designed by Lasley Brahaney that I found here (but I’d love to keep our Chippendale railings – so not this exactly).

In the meantime I’ll take the fact that it no longer looks like it’s hosting a spider meet & greet for the surrounding five counties. Although we did dress it up for Halloween (because fake spooky things beat ten thousand actual spiders).

Clearly a lot of this stuff is just seasonal, but if the kids have any say, the chihuahua skeleton (which we’ve affectionately named Skeleburger) will be there year-round. We also added a few pumpkins that we picked out with the kids and a few quirky “animal friends” (I can’t find an identical owl to link to, but this one would be awesome for Halloween too).

We’ve had this ceramic white rabbit a while (he’s out year round just to send the “ceramic animals are always welcome here” message to the neighbors) but he works for Halloween too. Although he’s definitely out-creeped by the black feather crow and our floppy little black feather wreath.

I know what you’re going to ask. How does Burger feel about Skeleburger. Does he love him? Does he loathe him? Well, Burger’s reaction can best be described as aloof and unimpressed.

Whenever he sees him he’s all, “Oh, it’s you. How boring.” He doesn’t just strut or sashay by. He makes a point of being straight up unimpressed. Sometimes he stops and yawns. This time he freaking stopped and stretched right in front of him. Like, “Look how long and flexible I am. You can’t even move. And why do you have ears if you’re a skeleton?!” It was a true demonstration of dog dominance.

So that’s what the porch is looking like these days. The spiderwebs might come back, and the mat might eventually fade, but I’m pretty sure the bushes are going to outlive us all.

Psst- Wanna see more outdoor updates & posts about naaaature? Here are a whole bunch from the archives. 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch appeared first on Young House Love.

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch published first on http://ift.tt/2qCHnUt

[additionallysad]

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch http://ift.tt/2gfZ4pL

Beach house stuff is flying along, and we owe you guys a giant post (in the meantime you can see some pics on Instagram and Facebook) but we have some breaking porch news, which is that it no longer looks neglected and abandoned. Plus I got a little “creative” with the bushes so they’ll never die on me again. I don’t have a great “before” photo because it wasn’t something I ever thought to capture for posterity, but think dirty old doormat, dead plants, discolored brick, and spiderwebs (but not of the Halloween-decoration variety).

One thing that tipped us off to the problem was taking our annual First Day of School photos out in front of the door. We were looking at this year’s photos next to the previous year’s photos to see how much the kids grew, but another thing that caught our attention was the tragic progression of our fading front door mat. It’s like that thing was just begging to be put out of its misery, but it happened so slowly we didn’t really notice until we were reminded how it used to look.

So I ordered another extra-wide mat (this is the one we got). If you have sidelights or a double door, I can’t tell you how strongly I recommend a wider doormat. They can be a pain to track down, and aren’t super cheap (ours is the 30 x 48″ one for $79) but we found that any normal sized ones looked kind of dinky and unbalanced on our porch.

But the real stars of this refresh are the two evergreen trees in the black planters. We’ve had THE WORST time keeping plants alive here – so dead plants have been flanking the front door for 90% of the last 4.5 years. Every year we would buy something, it would fry from the insane direct sunlight our porch gets, and then the sad remains of the dearly departed plant would sit in the planter for a few months until we’d lather, rinse, and repeat that process. I tried annuals like creeping jenny and petunias (burned and died). Evergreens like boxwoods and dwarf spruces (burned and died even faster).  I’ve tried setting an alarm on my phone to water things every day. I’ve tried the upside-down wine bottle trick to water things. It was like a curse that refused to be broken… until now.

These evergreens can’t ever die BECAUSE THEY’RE FAKE!! After years of trying to make something (anything!) live in these planters I feel LIBERATED! These faux 36″ evergreens came into my life at the perfect time. I was at my wits end. And even though I worried they’d look lame and plastic-y, I was willing to roll the dice and try them.

You have to fluff them up when they arrive (they look sort of flat right out of the box) but they’re SO CONVINCING! The color is right. The large size is awesome. The price is way less than I’ve paid for all the things that have died on me in the past. I’m basically in love with these bushes and if loving them is wrong I don’t want to be right.

And yes, I plopped the little black pot that each tree comes in right into the dirt of our larger black planters (these are similar black planters if you’re looking). The real dirt around them just ads to the realism ;)

The last of the three things that whipped our porch back into shape was more subtle (which is my way of saying it was just deferred maintenance on our part). Since we had our pressure washer out to clean the brick on the back of the house after ripping off the deck, John sprayed down the front porch while he was at it because he wants to spray everything with the pressure washer.  Again, I don’t have a great “before” of this, but you can see the grime on the brick steps in this photo I found below.

There’s also this picture I took to show off my new fake evergreens on InstaStories. Look how green and mildewy the white railing looks. Yeesh.

We haven’t pressure washed this area since before we moved in over 4 years ago, so it was well overdue. The before and afters were pretty similar to what you saw in this post, but it was actually the first time we ever pressure washed the stone aggregate walkway. It’s one of those things you don’t realize you need until you see the difference it makes (in the photo below John had just done the outline and the diagonal stripe to show the improvement). How crazy is that difference?!

So this is how the porch looks, thanks to our new NEVER GONNA DIE plants, our new not-faded extra wide doormat, and a little stone & brick facial (aka: power washing).

I also have some percolating plans to update the portico a bit more, with chunkier trim around the triangle and squared off columns, kind of like this porch, designed by Lasley Brahaney that I found here (but I’d love to keep our Chippendale railings – so not this exactly).

In the meantime I’ll take the fact that it no longer looks like it’s hosting a spider meet & greet for the surrounding five counties. Although we did dress it up for Halloween (because fake spooky things beat ten thousand actual spiders).

Clearly a lot of this stuff is just seasonal, but if the kids have any say, the chihuahua skeleton (which we’ve affectionately named Skeleburger) will be there year-round. We also added a few pumpkins that we picked out with the kids and a few quirky “animal friends” (I can’t find an identical owl to link to, but this one would be awesome for Halloween too).

We’ve had this ceramic white rabbit a while (he’s out year round just to send the “ceramic animals are always welcome here” message to the neighbors) but he works for Halloween too. Although he’s definitely out-creeped by the black feather crow and our floppy little black feather wreath.

I know what you’re going to ask. How does Burger feel about Skeleburger. Does he love him? Does he loathe him? Well, Burger’s reaction can best be described as aloof and unimpressed.

Whenever he sees him he’s all, “Oh, it’s you. How boring.” He doesn’t just strut or sashay by. He makes a point of being straight up unimpressed. Sometimes he stops and yawns. This time he freaking stopped and stretched right in front of him. Like, “Look how long and flexible I am. You can’t even move. And why do you have ears if you’re a skeleton?!” It was a true demonstration of dog dominance.

So that’s what the porch is looking like these days. The spiderwebs might come back, and the mat might eventually fade, but I’m pretty sure the bushes are going to outlive us all.

Psst- Wanna see more outdoor updates & posts about naaaature? Here are a whole bunch from the archives. 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch appeared first on Young House Love.

#additionally sad home renovations

[lukerhill]

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch

Beach house stuff is flying along, and we owe you guys a giant post (in the meantime you can see some pics on Instagram and Facebook) but we have some breaking porch news, which is that it no longer looks neglected and abandoned. Plus I got a little “creative” with the bushes so they’ll never die on me again. I don’t have a great “before” photo because it wasn’t something I ever thought to capture for posterity, but think dirty old doormat, dead plants, discolored brick, and spiderwebs (but not of the Halloween-decoration variety).

One thing that tipped us off to the problem was taking our annual First Day of School photos out in front of the door. We were looking at this year’s photos next to the previous year’s photos to see how much the kids grew, but another thing that caught our attention was the tragic progression of our fading front door mat. It’s like that thing was just begging to be put out of its misery, but it happened so slowly we didn’t really notice until we were reminded how it used to look.

So I ordered another extra-wide mat (this is the one we got). If you have sidelights or a double door, I can’t tell you how strongly I recommend a wider doormat. They can be a pain to track down, and aren’t super cheap (ours is the 30 x 48″ one for $79) but we found that any normal sized ones looked kind of dinky and unbalanced on our porch.

But the real stars of this refresh are the two evergreen trees in the black planters. We’ve had THE WORST time keeping plants alive here – so dead plants have been flanking the front door for 90% of the last 4.5 years. Every year we would buy something, it would fry from the insane direct sunlight our porch gets, and then the sad remains of the dearly departed plant would sit in the planter for a few months until we’d lather, rinse, and repeat that process. I tried annuals like creeping jenny and petunias (burned and died). Evergreens like boxwoods and dwarf spruces (burned and died even faster).  I’ve tried setting an alarm on my phone to water things every day. I’ve tried the upside-down wine bottle trick to water things. It was like a curse that refused to be broken… until now.

These evergreens can’t ever die BECAUSE THEY’RE FAKE!! After years of trying to make something (anything!) live in these planters I feel LIBERATED! These faux 36″ evergreens came into my life at the perfect time. I was at my wits end. And even though I worried they’d look lame and plastic-y, I was willing to roll the dice and try them.

You have to fluff them up when they arrive (they look sort of flat right out of the box) but they’re SO CONVINCING! The color is right. The large size is awesome. The price is way less than I’ve paid for all the things that have died on me in the past. I’m basically in love with these bushes and if loving them is wrong I don’t want to be right.

And yes, I plopped the little black pot that each tree comes in right into the dirt of our larger black planters (these are similar black planters if you’re looking). The real dirt around them just ads to the realism ;)

The last of the three things that whipped our porch back into shape was more subtle (which is my way of saying it was just deferred maintenance on our part). Since we had our pressure washer out to clean the brick on the back of the house after ripping off the deck, John sprayed down the front porch while he was at it because he wants to spray everything with the pressure washer.  Again, I don’t have a great “before” of this, but you can see the grime on the brick steps in this photo I found below.

There’s also this picture I took to show off my new fake evergreens on InstaStories. Look how green and mildewy the white railing looks. Yeesh.

We haven’t pressure washed this area since before we moved in over 4 years ago, so it was well overdue. The before and afters were pretty similar to what you saw in this post, but it was actually the first time we ever pressure washed the stone aggregate walkway. It’s one of those things you don’t realize you need until you see the difference it makes (in the photo below John had just done the outline and the diagonal stripe to show the improvement). How crazy is that difference?!

So this is how the porch looks, thanks to our new NEVER GONNA DIE plants, our new not-faded extra wide doormat, and a little stone & brick facial (aka: power washing).

I also have some percolating plans to update the portico a bit more, with chunkier trim around the triangle and squared off columns, kind of like this porch, designed by Lasley Brahaney that I found here (but I’d love to keep our Chippendale railings – so not this exactly).

In the meantime I’ll take the fact that it no longer looks like it’s hosting a spider meet & greet for the surrounding five counties. Although we did dress it up for Halloween (because fake spooky things beat ten thousand actual spiders).

Clearly a lot of this stuff is just seasonal, but if the kids have any say, the chihuahua skeleton (which we’ve affectionately named Skeleburger) will be there year-round. We also added a few pumpkins that we picked out with the kids and a few quirky “animal friends” (I can’t find an identical owl to link to, but this one would be awesome for Halloween too).

We’ve had this ceramic white rabbit a while (he’s out year round just to send the “ceramic animals are always welcome here” message to the neighbors) but he works for Halloween too. Although he’s definitely out-creeped by the black feather crow and our floppy little black feather wreath.

I know what you’re going to ask. How does Burger feel about Skeleburger. Does he love him? Does he loathe him? Well, Burger’s reaction can best be described as aloof and unimpressed.

Whenever he sees him he’s all, “Oh, it’s you. How boring.” He doesn’t just strut or sashay by. He makes a point of being straight up unimpressed. Sometimes he stops and yawns. This time he freaking stopped and stretched right in front of him. Like, “Look how long and flexible I am. You can’t even move. And why do you have ears if you’re a skeleton?!” It was a true demonstration of dog dominance.

So that’s what the porch is looking like these days. The spiderwebs might come back, and the mat might eventually fade, but I’m pretty sure the bushes are going to outlive us all.

Psst- Wanna see more outdoor updates & posts about naaaature? Here are a whole bunch from the archives. 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch appeared first on Young House Love.

[interiorstarweb]

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch

Beach house stuff is flying along, and we owe you guys a giant post (in the meantime you can see some pics on Instagram and Facebook) but we have some breaking porch news, which is that it no longer looks neglected and abandoned. Plus I got a little “creative” with the bushes so they’ll never die on me again. I don’t have a great “before” photo because it wasn’t something I ever thought to capture for posterity, but think dirty old doormat, dead plants, discolored brick, and spiderwebs (but not of the Halloween-decoration variety).

One thing that tipped us off to the problem was taking our annual First Day of School photos out in front of the door. We were looking at this year’s photos next to the previous year’s photos to see how much the kids grew, but another thing that caught our attention was the tragic progression of our fading front door mat. It’s like that thing was just begging to be put out of its misery, but it happened so slowly we didn’t really notice until we were reminded how it used to look.

So I ordered another extra-wide mat (this is the one we got). If you have sidelights or a double door, I can’t tell you how strongly I recommend a wider doormat. They can be a pain to track down, and aren’t super cheap (ours is the 30 x 48″ one for $79) but we found that any normal sized ones looked kind of dinky and unbalanced on our porch.

But the real stars of this refresh are the two evergreen trees in the black planters. We’ve had THE WORST time keeping plants alive here – so dead plants have been flanking the front door for 90% of the last 4.5 years. Every year we would buy something, it would fry from the insane direct sunlight our porch gets, and then the sad remains of the dearly departed plant would sit in the planter for a few months until we’d lather, rinse, and repeat that process. I tried annuals like creeping jenny and petunias (burned and died). Evergreens like boxwoods and dwarf spruces (burned and died even faster).  I’ve tried setting an alarm on my phone to water things every day. I’ve tried the upside-down wine bottle trick to water things. It was like a curse that refused to be broken… until now.

These evergreens can’t ever die BECAUSE THEY’RE FAKE!! After years of trying to make something (anything!) live in these planters I feel LIBERATED! These faux 36″ evergreens came into my life at the perfect time. I was at my wits end. And even though I worried they’d look lame and plastic-y, I was willing to roll the dice and try them.

You have to fluff them up when they arrive (they look sort of flat right out of the box) but they’re SO CONVINCING! The color is right. The large size is awesome. The price is way less than I’ve paid for all the things that have died on me in the past. I’m basically in love with these bushes and if loving them is wrong I don’t want to be right.

And yes, I plopped the little black pot that each tree comes in right into the dirt of our larger black planters (these are similar black planters if you’re looking). The real dirt around them just ads to the realism ;)

The last of the three things that whipped our porch back into shape was more subtle (which is my way of saying it was just deferred maintenance on our part). Since we had our pressure washer out to clean the brick on the back of the house after ripping off the deck, John sprayed down the front porch while he was at it because he wants to spray everything with the pressure washer.  Again, I don’t have a great “before” of this, but you can see the grime on the brick steps in this photo I found below.

There’s also this picture I took to show off my new fake evergreens on InstaStories. Look how green and mildewy the white railing looks. Yeesh.

We haven’t pressure washed this area since before we moved in over 4 years ago, so it was well overdue. The before and afters were pretty similar to what you saw in this post, but it was actually the first time we ever pressure washed the stone aggregate walkway. It’s one of those things you don’t realize you need until you see the difference it makes (in the photo below John had just done the outline and the diagonal stripe to show the improvement). How crazy is that difference?!

So this is how the porch looks, thanks to our new NEVER GONNA DIE plants, our new not-faded extra wide doormat, and a little stone & brick facial (aka: power washing).

I also have some percolating plans to update the portico a bit more, with chunkier trim around the triangle and squared off columns, kind of like this porch, designed by Lasley Brahaney that I found here (but I’d love to keep our Chippendale railings – so not this exactly).

In the meantime I’ll take the fact that it no longer looks like it’s hosting a spider meet & greet for the surrounding five counties. Although we did dress it up for Halloween (because fake spooky things beat ten thousand actual spiders).

Clearly a lot of this stuff is just seasonal, but if the kids have any say, the chihuahua skeleton (which we’ve affectionately named Skeleburger) will be there year-round. We also added a few pumpkins that we picked out with the kids and a few quirky “animal friends” (I can’t find an identical owl to link to, but this one would be awesome for Halloween too).

We’ve had this ceramic white rabbit a while (he’s out year round just to send the “ceramic animals are always welcome here” message to the neighbors) but he works for Halloween too. Although he’s definitely out-creeped by the black feather crow and our floppy little black feather wreath.

I know what you’re going to ask. How does Burger feel about Skeleburger. Does he love him? Does he loathe him? Well, Burger’s reaction can best be described as aloof and unimpressed.

Whenever he sees him he’s all, “Oh, it’s you. How boring.” He doesn’t just strut or sashay by. He makes a point of being straight up unimpressed. Sometimes he stops and yawns. This time he freaking stopped and stretched right in front of him. Like, “Look how long and flexible I am. You can’t even move. And why do you have ears if you’re a skeleton?!” It was a true demonstration of dog dominance.

So that’s what the porch is looking like these days. The spiderwebs might come back, and the mat might eventually fade, but I’m pretty sure the bushes are going to outlive us all.

Psst- Wanna see more outdoor updates & posts about naaaature? Here are a whole bunch from the archives. 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch appeared first on Young House Love.

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch published first on http://ift.tt/2uiWrIt

[vincentbnaughton]

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch

Beach house stuff is flying along, and we owe you guys a giant post (in the meantime you can see some pics on Instagram and Facebook) but we have some breaking porch news, which is that it no longer looks neglected and abandoned. Plus I got a little “creative” with the bushes so they’ll never die on me again. I don’t have a great “before” photo because it wasn’t something I ever thought to capture for posterity, but think dirty old doormat, dead plants, discolored brick, and spiderwebs (but not of the Halloween-decoration variety).

One thing that tipped us off to the problem was taking our annual First Day of School photos out in front of the door. We were looking at this year’s photos next to the previous year’s photos to see how much the kids grew, but another thing that caught our attention was the tragic progression of our fading front door mat. It’s like that thing was just begging to be put out of its misery, but it happened so slowly we didn’t really notice until we were reminded how it used to look.

So I ordered another extra-wide mat (this is the one we got). If you have sidelights or a double door, I can’t tell you how strongly I recommend a wider doormat. They can be a pain to track down, and aren’t super cheap (ours is the 30 x 48″ one for $79) but we found that any normal sized ones looked kind of dinky and unbalanced on our porch.

But the real stars of this refresh are the two evergreen trees in the black planters. We’ve had THE WORST time keeping plants alive here – so dead plants have been flanking the front door for 90% of the last 4.5 years. Every year we would buy something, it would fry from the insane direct sunlight our porch gets, and then the sad remains of the dearly departed plant would sit in the planter for a few months until we’d lather, rinse, and repeat that process. I tried annuals like creeping jenny and petunias (burned and died). Evergreens like boxwoods and dwarf spruces (burned and died even faster).  I’ve tried setting an alarm on my phone to water things every day. I’ve tried the upside-down wine bottle trick to water things. It was like a curse that refused to be broken… until now.

These evergreens can’t ever die BECAUSE THEY’RE FAKE!! After years of trying to make something (anything!) live in these planters I feel LIBERATED! These faux 36″ evergreens came into my life at the perfect time. I was at my wits end. And even though I worried they’d look lame and plastic-y, I was willing to roll the dice and try them.

You have to fluff them up when they arrive (they look sort of flat right out of the box) but they’re SO CONVINCING! The color is right. The large size is awesome. The price is way less than I’ve paid for all the things that have died on me in the past. I’m basically in love with these bushes and if loving them is wrong I don’t want to be right.

And yes, I plopped the little black pot that each tree comes in right into the dirt of our larger black planters (these are similar black planters if you’re looking). The real dirt around them just ads to the realism ;)

The last of the three things that whipped our porch back into shape was more subtle (which is my way of saying it was just deferred maintenance on our part). Since we had our pressure washer out to clean the brick on the back of the house after ripping off the deck, John sprayed down the front porch while he was messy.  Again, I don’t have a great “before” of this, but you can see the grime on the brick steps in this photo I found below.

There’s also this picture I took to show off my new fake evergreens on InstaStories. Look how green and mildewy the white railing looks. Yeesh.

We haven’t pressure washed this area since before we moved in over 4 years ago, so it was well overdue. The before and afters were pretty similar to what you saw in this post, but it was actually the first time we ever pressure washed the stone aggregate walkway. It’s one of those things you don’t realize you need until you see the difference it makes (in the photo below John had just done the outline and the diagonal stripe to show the improvement). How crazy is that difference?!

So this is how the porch looks, thanks to our new NEVER GONNA DIE plants, our new not-faded extra wide doormat, and a little stone & brick facial (aka: power washing).

I also have some percolating plans to update the portico a bit more, with chunkier trim around the triangle and squared off columns, kind of like this porch, designed by Lasley Brahaney that I found here (but I’d love to keep our Chippendale railings – so not this exactly).

In the meantime I’ll take the fact that it no longer looks like it’s hosting a spider meet & greet for the surrounding five counties. Although we did dress it up for Halloween (because fake spooky things beat ten thousand actual spiders).

Clearly a lot of this stuff is just seasonal, but if the kids have any say, the chihuahua skeleton (which we’ve affectionately named Skeleburger) will be there year-round. We also added a few pumpkins the we picked out with the kids and a few quirky “animal friends” (I can’t find an identical owl to link to, but this one would be awesome for Halloween too).

We’ve had this ceramic white rabbit a while (he’s out year round just to send the “ceramic animals are always welcome here” message to the neighbors) but he works for Halloween too. Although he’s out-creeped by the black feather crow and our floppy little black feather wreath.

I know what you’re going to ask. How does Burger feel about Skeleburger. Does he love him? Does he loathe him? Well, Burger’s reaction can best be described as aloof and unimpressed.

Whenever he sees him he’s all, “Oh, it’s you. How boring.” He doesn’t just strut or sashay by. He makes a point of being straight up unimpressed. Sometimes he stops and yawns. This time he freaking stopped and stretched right in front of him. Like, “Look how long and flexible I am. You can’t even move. And why do you have ears if you’re a skeleton?!” It was a true demonstration of dog dominance.

So that’s what the porch is looking like these days. The spiderwebs might come back, and the mat might eventually fade, but I’m pretty sure the bushes are going to outlive us all.

Psst- Wanna see more outdoor updates & posts about naaaature? Here are a whole bunch from the archives. 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch appeared first on Young House Love.

[endlessarchite]

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch

Beach house stuff is flying along, and we owe you guys a giant post (in the meantime you can see some pics on Instagram and Facebook) but we have some breaking porch news, which is that it no longer looks neglected and abandoned. Plus I got a little “creative” with the bushes so they’ll never die on me again. I don’t have a great “before” photo because it wasn’t something I ever thought to capture for posterity, but think dirty old doormat, dead plants, discolored brick, and spiderwebs (but not of the Halloween-decoration variety).

One thing that tipped us off to the problem was taking our annual First Day of School photos out in front of the door. We were looking at this year’s photos next to the previous year’s photos to see how much the kids grew, but another thing that caught our attention was the tragic progression of our fading front door mat. It’s like that thing was just begging to be put out of its misery, but it happened so slowly we didn’t really notice until we were reminded how it used to look.

So I ordered another extra-wide mat (this is the one we got). If you have sidelights or a double door, I can’t tell you how strongly I recommend a wider doormat. They can be a pain to track down, and aren’t super cheap (ours is the 30 x 48″ one for $79) but we found that any normal sized ones looked kind of dinky and unbalanced on our porch.

But the real stars of this refresh are the two evergreen trees in the black planters. We’ve had THE WORST time keeping plants alive here – so dead plants have been flanking the front door for 90% of the last 4.5 years. Every year we would buy something, it would fry from the insane direct sunlight our porch gets, and then the sad remains of the dearly departed plant would sit in the planter for a few months until we’d lather, rinse, and repeat that process. I tried annuals like creeping jenny and petunias (burned and died). Evergreens like boxwoods and dwarf spruces (burned and died even faster).  I’ve tried setting an alarm on my phone to water things every day. I’ve tried the upside-down wine bottle trick to water things. It was like a curse that refused to be broken… until now.

These evergreens can’t ever die BECAUSE THEY’RE FAKE!! After years of trying to make something (anything!) live in these planters I feel LIBERATED! These faux 36″ evergreens came into my life at the perfect time. I was at my wits end. And even though I worried they’d look lame and plastic-y, I was willing to roll the dice and try them.

You have to fluff them up when they arrive (they look sort of flat right out of the box) but they’re SO CONVINCING! The color is right. The large size is awesome. The price is way less than I’ve paid for all the things that have died on me in the past. I’m basically in love with these bushes and if loving them is wrong I don’t want to be right.

And yes, I plopped the little black pot that each tree comes in right into the dirt of our larger black planters (these are similar black planters if you’re looking). The real dirt around them just ads to the realism ;)

The last of the three things that whipped our porch back into shape was more subtle (which is my way of saying it was just deferred maintenance on our part). Since we had our pressure washer out to clean the brick on the back of the house after ripping off the deck, John sprayed down the front porch while he was at it because he wants to spray everything with the pressure washer.  Again, I don’t have a great “before” of this, but you can see the grime on the brick steps in this photo I found below.

There’s also this picture I took to show off my new fake evergreens on InstaStories. Look how green and mildewy the white railing looks. Yeesh.

We haven’t pressure washed this area since before we moved in over 4 years ago, so it was well overdue. The before and afters were pretty similar to what you saw in this post, but it was actually the first time we ever pressure washed the stone aggregate walkway. It’s one of those things you don’t realize you need until you see the difference it makes (in the photo below John had just done the outline and the diagonal stripe to show the improvement). How crazy is that difference?!

So this is how the porch looks, thanks to our new NEVER GONNA DIE plants, our new not-faded extra wide doormat, and a little stone & brick facial (aka: power washing).

I also have some percolating plans to update the portico a bit more, with chunkier trim around the triangle and squared off columns, kind of like this porch, designed by Lasley Brahaney that I found here (but I’d love to keep our Chippendale railings – so not this exactly).

In the meantime I’ll take the fact that it no longer looks like it’s hosting a spider meet & greet for the surrounding five counties. Although we did dress it up for Halloween (because fake spooky things beat ten thousand actual spiders).

Clearly a lot of this stuff is just seasonal, but if the kids have any say, the chihuahua skeleton (which we’ve affectionately named Skeleburger) will be there year-round. We also added a few pumpkins that we picked out with the kids and a few quirky “animal friends” (I can’t find an identical owl to link to, but this one would be awesome for Halloween too).

We’ve had this ceramic white rabbit a while (he’s out year round just to send the “ceramic animals are always welcome here” message to the neighbors) but he works for Halloween too. Although he’s definitely out-creeped by the black feather crow and our floppy little black feather wreath.

I know what you’re going to ask. How does Burger feel about Skeleburger. Does he love him? Does he loathe him? Well, Burger’s reaction can best be described as aloof and unimpressed.

Whenever he sees him he’s all, “Oh, it’s you. How boring.” He doesn’t just strut or sashay by. He makes a point of being straight up unimpressed. Sometimes he stops and yawns. This time he freaking stopped and stretched right in front of him. Like, “Look how long and flexible I am. You can’t even move. And why do you have ears if you’re a skeleton?!” It was a true demonstration of dog dominance.

So that’s what the porch is looking like these days. The spiderwebs might come back, and the mat might eventually fade, but I’m pretty sure the bushes are going to outlive us all.

Psst- Wanna see more outdoor updates & posts about naaaature? Here are a whole bunch from the archives. 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch appeared first on Young House Love.

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch published first on http://ift.tt/2qxZz2j

[truereviewpage]

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch

Beach house stuff is flying along, and we owe you guys a giant post (in the meantime you can see some pics on Instagram and Facebook) but we have some breaking porch news, which is that it no longer looks neglected and abandoned. Plus I got a little “creative” with the bushes so they’ll never die on me again. I don’t have a great “before” photo because it wasn’t something I ever thought to capture for posterity, but think dirty old doormat, dead plants, discolored brick, and spiderwebs (but not of the Halloween-decoration variety).

One thing that tipped us off to the problem was taking our annual First Day of School photos out in front of the door. We were looking at this year’s photos next to the previous year’s photos to see how much the kids grew, but another thing that caught our attention was the tragic progression of our fading front door mat. It’s like that thing was just begging to be put out of its misery, but it happened so slowly we didn’t really notice until we were reminded how it used to look.

So I ordered another extra-wide mat (this is the one we got). If you have sidelights or a double door, I can’t tell you how strongly I recommend a wider doormat. They can be a pain to track down, and aren’t super cheap (ours is the 30 x 48″ one for $79) but we found that any normal sized ones looked kind of dinky and unbalanced on our porch.

But the real stars of this refresh are the two evergreen trees in the black planters. We’ve had THE WORST time keeping plants alive here – so dead plants have been flanking the front door for 90% of the last 4.5 years. Every year we would buy something, it would fry from the insane direct sunlight our porch gets, and then the sad remains of the dearly departed plant would sit in the planter for a few months until we’d lather, rinse, and repeat that process. I tried annuals like creeping jenny and petunias (burned and died). Evergreens like boxwoods and dwarf spruces (burned and died even faster).  I’ve tried setting an alarm on my phone to water things every day. I’ve tried the upside-down wine bottle trick to water things. It was like a curse that refused to be broken… until now.

These evergreens can’t ever die BECAUSE THEY’RE FAKE!! After years of trying to make something (anything!) live in these planters I feel LIBERATED! These faux 36″ evergreens came into my life at the perfect time. I was at my wits end. And even though I worried they’d look lame and plastic-y, I was willing to roll the dice and try them.

You have to fluff them up when they arrive (they look sort of flat right out of the box) but they’re SO CONVINCING! The color is right. The large size is awesome. The price is way less than I’ve paid for all the things that have died on me in the past. I’m basically in love with these bushes and if loving them is wrong I don’t want to be right.

And yes, I plopped the little black pot that each tree comes in right into the dirt of our larger black planters (these are similar black planters if you’re looking). The real dirt around them just ads to the realism ;)

The last of the three things that whipped our porch back into shape was more subtle (which is my way of saying it was just deferred maintenance on our part). Since we had our pressure washer out to clean the brick on the back of the house after ripping off the deck, John sprayed down the front porch while he was at it because he wants to spray everything with the pressure washer.  Again, I don’t have a great “before” of this, but you can see the grime on the brick steps in this photo I found below.

There’s also this picture I took to show off my new fake evergreens on InstaStories. Look how green and mildewy the white railing looks. Yeesh.

We haven’t pressure washed this area since before we moved in over 4 years ago, so it was well overdue. The before and afters were pretty similar to what you saw in this post, but it was actually the first time we ever pressure washed the stone aggregate walkway. It’s one of those things you don’t realize you need until you see the difference it makes (in the photo below John had just done the outline and the diagonal stripe to show the improvement). How crazy is that difference?!

So this is how the porch looks, thanks to our new NEVER GONNA DIE plants, our new not-faded extra wide doormat, and a little stone & brick facial (aka: power washing).

I also have some percolating plans to update the portico a bit more, with chunkier trim around the triangle and squared off columns, kind of like this porch, designed by Lasley Brahaney that I found here (but I’d love to keep our Chippendale railings – so not this exactly).

In the meantime I’ll take the fact that it no longer looks like it’s hosting a spider meet & greet for the surrounding five counties. Although we did dress it up for Halloween (because fake spooky things beat ten thousand actual spiders).

Clearly a lot of this stuff is just seasonal, but if the kids have any say, the chihuahua skeleton (which we’ve affectionately named Skeleburger) will be there year-round. We also added a few pumpkins that we picked out with the kids and a few quirky “animal friends” (I can’t find an identical owl to link to, but this one would be awesome for Halloween too).

We’ve had this ceramic white rabbit a while (he’s out year round just to send the “ceramic animals are always welcome here” message to the neighbors) but he works for Halloween too. Although he’s definitely out-creeped by the black feather crow and our floppy little black feather wreath.

I know what you’re going to ask. How does Burger feel about Skeleburger. Does he love him? Does he loathe him? Well, Burger’s reaction can best be described as aloof and unimpressed.

Whenever he sees him he’s all, “Oh, it’s you. How boring.” He doesn’t just strut or sashay by. He makes a point of being straight up unimpressed. Sometimes he stops and yawns. This time he freaking stopped and stretched right in front of him. Like, “Look how long and flexible I am. You can’t even move. And why do you have ears if you’re a skeleton?!” It was a true demonstration of dog dominance.

So that’s what the porch is looking like these days. The spiderwebs might come back, and the mat might eventually fade, but I’m pretty sure the bushes are going to outlive us all.

Psst- Wanna see more outdoor updates & posts about naaaature? Here are a whole bunch from the archives. 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch appeared first on Young House Love.

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch published first on http://ift.tt/2qCHnUt

[truereviewpage]

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch

Beach house stuff is flying along, and we owe you guys a giant post (in the meantime you can see some pics on Instagram and Facebook) but we have some breaking porch news, which is that it no longer looks neglected and abandoned. Plus I got a little “creative” with the bushes so they’ll never die on me again. I don’t have a great “before” photo because it wasn’t something I ever thought to capture for posterity, but think dirty old doormat, dead plants, discolored brick, and spiderwebs (but not of the Halloween-decoration variety).

One thing that tipped us off to the problem was taking our annual First Day of School photos out in front of the door. We were looking at this year’s photos next to the previous year’s photos to see how much the kids grew, but another thing that caught our attention was the tragic progression of our fading front door mat. It’s like that thing was just begging to be put out of its misery, but it happened so slowly we didn’t really notice until we were reminded how it used to look.

So I ordered another extra-wide mat (this is the one we got). If you have sidelights or a double door, I can’t tell you how strongly I recommend a wider doormat. They can be a pain to track down, and aren’t super cheap (ours is the 30 x 48″ one for $79) but we found that any normal sized ones looked kind of dinky and unbalanced on our porch.

But the real stars of this refresh are the two evergreen trees in the black planters. We’ve had THE WORST time keeping plants alive here – so dead plants have been flanking the front door for 90% of the last 4.5 years. Every year we would buy something, it would fry from the insane direct sunlight our porch gets, and then the sad remains of the dearly departed plant would sit in the planter for a few months until we’d lather, rinse, and repeat that process. I tried annuals like creeping jenny and petunias (burned and died). Evergreens like boxwoods and dwarf spruces (burned and died even faster).  I’ve tried setting an alarm on my phone to water things every day. I’ve tried the upside-down wine bottle trick to water things. It was like a curse that refused to be broken… until now.

These evergreens can’t ever die BECAUSE THEY’RE FAKE!! After years of trying to make something (anything!) live in these planters I feel LIBERATED! These faux 36″ evergreens came into my life at the perfect time. I was at my wits end. And even though I worried they’d look lame and plastic-y, I was willing to roll the dice and try them.

You have to fluff them up when they arrive (they look sort of flat right out of the box) but they’re SO CONVINCING! The color is right. The large size is awesome. The price is way less than I’ve paid for all the things that have died on me in the past. I’m basically in love with these bushes and if loving them is wrong I don’t want to be right.

And yes, I plopped the little black pot that each tree comes in right into the dirt of our larger black planters (these are similar black planters if you’re looking). The real dirt around them just ads to the realism ;)

The last of the three things that whipped our porch back into shape was more subtle (which is my way of saying it was just deferred maintenance on our part). Since we had our pressure washer out to clean the brick on the back of the house after ripping off the deck, John sprayed down the front porch while he was at it because he wants to spray everything with the pressure washer.  Again, I don’t have a great “before” of this, but you can see the grime on the brick steps in this photo I found below.

There’s also this picture I took to show off my new fake evergreens on InstaStories. Look how green and mildewy the white railing looks. Yeesh.

We haven’t pressure washed this area since before we moved in over 4 years ago, so it was well overdue. The before and afters were pretty similar to what you saw in this post, but it was actually the first time we ever pressure washed the stone aggregate walkway. It’s one of those things you don’t realize you need until you see the difference it makes (in the photo below John had just done the outline and the diagonal stripe to show the improvement). How crazy is that difference?!

So this is how the porch looks, thanks to our new NEVER GONNA DIE plants, our new not-faded extra wide doormat, and a little stone & brick facial (aka: power washing).

I also have some percolating plans to update the portico a bit more, with chunkier trim around the triangle and squared off columns, kind of like this porch, designed by Lasley Brahaney that I found here (but I’d love to keep our Chippendale railings – so not this exactly).

In the meantime I’ll take the fact that it no longer looks like it’s hosting a spider meet & greet for the surrounding five counties. Although we did dress it up for Halloween (because fake spooky things beat ten thousand actual spiders).

Clearly a lot of this stuff is just seasonal, but if the kids have any say, the chihuahua skeleton (which we’ve affectionately named Skeleburger) will be there year-round. We also added a few pumpkins that we picked out with the kids and a few quirky “animal friends” (I can’t find an identical owl to link to, but this one would be awesome for Halloween too).

We’ve had this ceramic white rabbit a while (he’s out year round just to send the “ceramic animals are always welcome here” message to the neighbors) but he works for Halloween too. Although he’s definitely out-creeped by the black feather crow and our floppy little black feather wreath.

I know what you’re going to ask. How does Burger feel about Skeleburger. Does he love him? Does he loathe him? Well, Burger’s reaction can best be described as aloof and unimpressed.

Whenever he sees him he’s all, “Oh, it’s you. How boring.” He doesn’t just strut or sashay by. He makes a point of being straight up unimpressed. Sometimes he stops and yawns. This time he freaking stopped and stretched right in front of him. Like, “Look how long and flexible I am. You can’t even move. And why do you have ears if you’re a skeleton?!” It was a true demonstration of dog dominance.

So that’s what the porch is looking like these days. The spiderwebs might come back, and the mat might eventually fade, but I’m pretty sure the bushes are going to outlive us all.

Psst- Wanna see more outdoor updates & posts about naaaature? Here are a whole bunch from the archives. 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch appeared first on Young House Love.

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch published first on http://ift.tt/2qCHnUt

[statusreview]

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch

Beach house stuff is flying along, and we owe you guys a giant post (in the meantime you can see some pics on Instagram and Facebook) but we have some breaking porch news, which is that it no longer looks neglected and abandoned. Plus I got a little “creative” with the bushes so they’ll never die on me again. I don’t have a great “before” photo because it wasn’t something I ever thought to capture for posterity, but think dirty old doormat, dead plants, discolored brick, and spiderwebs (but not of the Halloween-decoration variety).

One thing that tipped us off to the problem was taking our annual First Day of School photos out in front of the door. We were looking at this year’s photos next to the previous year’s photos to see how much the kids grew, but another thing that caught our attention was the tragic progression of our fading front door mat. It’s like that thing was just begging to be put out of its misery, but it happened so slowly we didn’t really notice until we were reminded how it used to look.

So I ordered another extra-wide mat (this is the one we got). If you have sidelights or a double door, I can’t tell you how strongly I recommend a wider doormat. They can be a pain to track down, and aren’t super cheap (ours is the 30 x 48″ one for $79) but we found that any normal sized ones looked kind of dinky and unbalanced on our porch.

But the real stars of this refresh are the two evergreen trees in the black planters. We’ve had THE WORST time keeping plants alive here – so dead plants have been flanking the front door for 90% of the last 4.5 years. Every year we would buy something, it would fry from the insane direct sunlight our porch gets, and then the sad remains of the dearly departed plant would sit in the planter for a few months until we’d lather, rinse, and repeat that process. I tried annuals like creeping jenny and petunias (burned and died). Evergreens like boxwoods and dwarf spruces (burned and died even faster).  I’ve tried setting an alarm on my phone to water things every day. I’ve tried the upside-down wine bottle trick to water things. It was like a curse that refused to be broken… until now.

These evergreens can’t ever die BECAUSE THEY’RE FAKE!! After years of trying to make something (anything!) live in these planters I feel LIBERATED! These faux 36″ evergreens came into my life at the perfect time. I was at my wits end. And even though I worried they’d look lame and plastic-y, I was willing to roll the dice and try them.

You have to fluff them up when they arrive (they look sort of flat right out of the box) but they’re SO CONVINCING! The color is right. The large size is awesome. The price is way less than I’ve paid for all the things that have died on me in the past. I’m basically in love with these bushes and if loving them is wrong I don’t want to be right.

And yes, I plopped the little black pot that each tree comes in right into the dirt of our larger black planters (these are similar black planters if you’re looking). The real dirt around them just ads to the realism ;)

The last of the three things that whipped our porch back into shape was more subtle (which is my way of saying it was just deferred maintenance on our part). Since we had our pressure washer out to clean the brick on the back of the house after ripping off the deck, John sprayed down the front porch while he was at it because he wants to spray everything with the pressure washer.  Again, I don’t have a great “before” of this, but you can see the grime on the brick steps in this photo I found below.

There’s also this picture I took to show off my new fake evergreens on InstaStories. Look how green and mildewy the white railing looks. Yeesh.

We haven’t pressure washed this area since before we moved in over 4 years ago, so it was well overdue. The before and afters were pretty similar to what you saw in this post, but it was actually the first time we ever pressure washed the stone aggregate walkway. It’s one of those things you don’t realize you need until you see the difference it makes (in the photo below John had just done the outline and the diagonal stripe to show the improvement). How crazy is that difference?!

So this is how the porch looks, thanks to our new NEVER GONNA DIE plants, our new not-faded extra wide doormat, and a little stone & brick facial (aka: power washing).

I also have some percolating plans to update the portico a bit more, with chunkier trim around the triangle and squared off columns, kind of like this porch, designed by Lasley Brahaney that I found here (but I’d love to keep our Chippendale railings – so not this exactly).

In the meantime I’ll take the fact that it no longer looks like it’s hosting a spider meet & greet for the surrounding five counties. Although we did dress it up for Halloween (because fake spooky things beat ten thousand actual spiders).

Clearly a lot of this stuff is just seasonal, but if the kids have any say, the chihuahua skeleton (which we’ve affectionately named Skeleburger) will be there year-round. We also added a few pumpkins that we picked out with the kids and a few quirky “animal friends” (I can’t find an identical owl to link to, but this one would be awesome for Halloween too).

We’ve had this ceramic white rabbit a while (he’s out year round just to send the “ceramic animals are always welcome here” message to the neighbors) but he works for Halloween too. Although he’s definitely out-creeped by the black feather crow and our floppy little black feather wreath.

I know what you’re going to ask. How does Burger feel about Skeleburger. Does he love him? Does he loathe him? Well, Burger’s reaction can best be described as aloof and unimpressed.

Whenever he sees him he’s all, “Oh, it’s you. How boring.” He doesn’t just strut or sashay by. He makes a point of being straight up unimpressed. Sometimes he stops and yawns. This time he freaking stopped and stretched right in front of him. Like, “Look how long and flexible I am. You can’t even move. And why do you have ears if you’re a skeleton?!” It was a true demonstration of dog dominance.

So that’s what the porch is looking like these days. The spiderwebs might come back, and the mat might eventually fade, but I’m pretty sure the bushes are going to outlive us all.

Psst- Wanna see more outdoor updates & posts about naaaature? Here are a whole bunch from the archives. 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch appeared first on Young House Love.

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch published first on http://ift.tt/2r6hzQy

[statusreview]

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch

Beach house stuff is flying along, and we owe you guys a giant post (in the meantime you can see some pics on Instagram and Facebook) but we have some breaking porch news, which is that it no longer looks neglected and abandoned. Plus I got a little “creative” with the bushes so they’ll never die on me again. I don’t have a great “before” photo because it wasn’t something I ever thought to capture for posterity, but think dirty old doormat, dead plants, discolored brick, and spiderwebs (but not of the Halloween-decoration variety).

One thing that tipped us off to the problem was taking our annual First Day of School photos out in front of the door. We were looking at this year’s photos next to the previous year’s photos to see how much the kids grew, but another thing that caught our attention was the tragic progression of our fading front door mat. It’s like that thing was just begging to be put out of its misery, but it happened so slowly we didn’t really notice until we were reminded how it used to look.

So I ordered another extra-wide mat (this is the one we got). If you have sidelights or a double door, I can’t tell you how strongly I recommend a wider doormat. They can be a pain to track down, and aren’t super cheap (ours is the 30 x 48″ one for $79) but we found that any normal sized ones looked kind of dinky and unbalanced on our porch.

But the real stars of this refresh are the two evergreen trees in the black planters. We’ve had THE WORST time keeping plants alive here – so dead plants have been flanking the front door for 90% of the last 4.5 years. Every year we would buy something, it would fry from the insane direct sunlight our porch gets, and then the sad remains of the dearly departed plant would sit in the planter for a few months until we’d lather, rinse, and repeat that process. I tried annuals like creeping jenny and petunias (burned and died). Evergreens like boxwoods and dwarf spruces (burned and died even faster).  I’ve tried setting an alarm on my phone to water things every day. I’ve tried the upside-down wine bottle trick to water things. It was like a curse that refused to be broken… until now.

These evergreens can’t ever die BECAUSE THEY’RE FAKE!! After years of trying to make something (anything!) live in these planters I feel LIBERATED! These faux 36″ evergreens came into my life at the perfect time. I was at my wits end. And even though I worried they’d look lame and plastic-y, I was willing to roll the dice and try them.

You have to fluff them up when they arrive (they look sort of flat right out of the box) but they’re SO CONVINCING! The color is right. The large size is awesome. The price is way less than I’ve paid for all the things that have died on me in the past. I’m basically in love with these bushes and if loving them is wrong I don’t want to be right.

And yes, I plopped the little black pot that each tree comes in right into the dirt of our larger black planters (these are similar black planters if you’re looking). The real dirt around them just ads to the realism ;)

The last of the three things that whipped our porch back into shape was more subtle (which is my way of saying it was just deferred maintenance on our part). Since we had our pressure washer out to clean the brick on the back of the house after ripping off the deck, John sprayed down the front porch while he was at it because he wants to spray everything with the pressure washer.  Again, I don’t have a great “before” of this, but you can see the grime on the brick steps in this photo I found below.

There’s also this picture I took to show off my new fake evergreens on InstaStories. Look how green and mildewy the white railing looks. Yeesh.

We haven’t pressure washed this area since before we moved in over 4 years ago, so it was well overdue. The before and afters were pretty similar to what you saw in this post, but it was actually the first time we ever pressure washed the stone aggregate walkway. It’s one of those things you don’t realize you need until you see the difference it makes (in the photo below John had just done the outline and the diagonal stripe to show the improvement). How crazy is that difference?!

So this is how the porch looks, thanks to our new NEVER GONNA DIE plants, our new not-faded extra wide doormat, and a little stone & brick facial (aka: power washing).

I also have some percolating plans to update the portico a bit more, with chunkier trim around the triangle and squared off columns, kind of like this porch, designed by Lasley Brahaney that I found here (but I’d love to keep our Chippendale railings – so not this exactly).

In the meantime I’ll take the fact that it no longer looks like it’s hosting a spider meet & greet for the surrounding five counties. Although we did dress it up for Halloween (because fake spooky things beat ten thousand actual spiders).

Clearly a lot of this stuff is just seasonal, but if the kids have any say, the chihuahua skeleton (which we’ve affectionately named Skeleburger) will be there year-round. We also added a few pumpkins that we picked out with the kids and a few quirky “animal friends” (I can’t find an identical owl to link to, but this one would be awesome for Halloween too).

We’ve had this ceramic white rabbit a while (he’s out year round just to send the “ceramic animals are always welcome here” message to the neighbors) but he works for Halloween too. Although he’s definitely out-creeped by the black feather crow and our floppy little black feather wreath.

I know what you’re going to ask. How does Burger feel about Skeleburger. Does he love him? Does he loathe him? Well, Burger’s reaction can best be described as aloof and unimpressed.

Whenever he sees him he’s all, “Oh, it’s you. How boring.” He doesn’t just strut or sashay by. He makes a point of being straight up unimpressed. Sometimes he stops and yawns. This time he freaking stopped and stretched right in front of him. Like, “Look how long and flexible I am. You can’t even move. And why do you have ears if you’re a skeleton?!” It was a true demonstration of dog dominance.

So that’s what the porch is looking like these days. The spiderwebs might come back, and the mat might eventually fade, but I’m pretty sure the bushes are going to outlive us all.

Psst- Wanna see more outdoor updates & posts about naaaature? Here are a whole bunch from the archives. 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch appeared first on Young House Love.

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch published first on http://ift.tt/2r6hzQy

[truereviewpage]

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch

Beach house stuff is flying along, and we owe you guys a giant post (in the meantime you can see some pics on Instagram and Facebook) but we have some breaking porch news, which is that it no longer looks neglected and abandoned. Plus I got a little “creative” with the bushes so they’ll never die on me again. I don’t have a great “before” photo because it wasn’t something I ever thought to capture for posterity, but think dirty old doormat, dead plants, discolored brick, and spiderwebs (but not of the Halloween-decoration variety).

One thing that tipped us off to the problem was taking our annual First Day of School photos out in front of the door. We were looking at this year’s photos next to the previous year’s photos to see how much the kids grew, but another thing that caught our attention was the tragic progression of our fading front door mat. It’s like that thing was just begging to be put out of its misery, but it happened so slowly we didn’t really notice until we were reminded how it used to look.

So I ordered another extra-wide mat (this is the one we got). If you have sidelights or a double door, I can’t tell you how strongly I recommend a wider doormat. They can be a pain to track down, and aren’t super cheap (ours is the 30 x 48″ one for $79) but we found that any normal sized ones looked kind of dinky and unbalanced on our porch.

But the real stars of this refresh are the two evergreen trees in the black planters. We’ve had THE WORST time keeping plants alive here – so dead plants have been flanking the front door for 90% of the last 4.5 years. Every year we would buy something, it would fry from the insane direct sunlight our porch gets, and then the sad remains of the dearly departed plant would sit in the planter for a few months until we’d lather, rinse, and repeat that process. I tried annuals like creeping jenny and petunias (burned and died). Evergreens like boxwoods and dwarf spruces (burned and died even faster).  I’ve tried setting an alarm on my phone to water things every day. I’ve tried the upside-down wine bottle trick to water things. It was like a curse that refused to be broken… until now.

These evergreens can’t ever die BECAUSE THEY’RE FAKE!! After years of trying to make something (anything!) live in these planters I feel LIBERATED! These faux 36″ evergreens came into my life at the perfect time. I was at my wits end. And even though I worried they’d look lame and plastic-y, I was willing to roll the dice and try them.

You have to fluff them up when they arrive (they look sort of flat right out of the box) but they’re SO CONVINCING! The color is right. The large size is awesome. The price is way less than I’ve paid for all the things that have died on me in the past. I’m basically in love with these bushes and if loving them is wrong I don’t want to be right.

And yes, I plopped the little black pot that each tree comes in right into the dirt of our larger black planters (these are similar black planters if you’re looking). The real dirt around them just ads to the realism ;)

The last of the three things that whipped our porch back into shape was more subtle (which is my way of saying it was just deferred maintenance on our part). Since we had our pressure washer out to clean the brick on the back of the house after ripping off the deck, John sprayed down the front porch while he was at it because he wants to spray everything with the pressure washer.  Again, I don’t have a great “before” of this, but you can see the grime on the brick steps in this photo I found below.

There’s also this picture I took to show off my new fake evergreens on InstaStories. Look how green and mildewy the white railing looks. Yeesh.

We haven’t pressure washed this area since before we moved in over 4 years ago, so it was well overdue. The before and afters were pretty similar to what you saw in this post, but it was actually the first time we ever pressure washed the stone aggregate walkway. It’s one of those things you don’t realize you need until you see the difference it makes (in the photo below John had just done the outline and the diagonal stripe to show the improvement). How crazy is that difference?!

So this is how the porch looks, thanks to our new NEVER GONNA DIE plants, our new not-faded extra wide doormat, and a little stone & brick facial (aka: power washing).

I also have some percolating plans to update the portico a bit more, with chunkier trim around the triangle and squared off columns, kind of like this porch, designed by Lasley Brahaney that I found here (but I’d love to keep our Chippendale railings – so not this exactly).

In the meantime I’ll take the fact that it no longer looks like it’s hosting a spider meet & greet for the surrounding five counties. Although we did dress it up for Halloween (because fake spooky things beat ten thousand actual spiders).

Clearly a lot of this stuff is just seasonal, but if the kids have any say, the chihuahua skeleton (which we’ve affectionately named Skeleburger) will be there year-round. We also added a few pumpkins that we picked out with the kids and a few quirky “animal friends” (I can’t find an identical owl to link to, but this one would be awesome for Halloween too).

We’ve had this ceramic white rabbit a while (he’s out year round just to send the “ceramic animals are always welcome here” message to the neighbors) but he works for Halloween too. Although he’s definitely out-creeped by the black feather crow and our floppy little black feather wreath.

I know what you’re going to ask. How does Burger feel about Skeleburger. Does he love him? Does he loathe him? Well, Burger’s reaction can best be described as aloof and unimpressed.

Whenever he sees him he’s all, “Oh, it’s you. How boring.” He doesn’t just strut or sashay by. He makes a point of being straight up unimpressed. Sometimes he stops and yawns. This time he freaking stopped and stretched right in front of him. Like, “Look how long and flexible I am. You can’t even move. And why do you have ears if you’re a skeleton?!” It was a true demonstration of dog dominance.

So that’s what the porch is looking like these days. The spiderwebs might come back, and the mat might eventually fade, but I’m pretty sure the bushes are going to outlive us all.

Psst- Wanna see more outdoor updates & posts about naaaature? Here are a whole bunch from the archives. 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch appeared first on Young House Love.

Three Fixes That Solved Our Shameful Front Porch published first on http://ift.tt/2qCHnUt