Curb Appeal

This storage bench sits just outside my front door. I built it about 6 years ago, with fir 1x6's, 2x6's and some 2x2's. I used fir because it was the cheapest and I was going to paint it anyway. It was painted green up until two days ago when I re-painted it this colour, Dusty Country by CIL- a kind of dijon mustard-khaki. Inside are stored toys, garden tools and fertilizers, an extension cord, and other outdoor paraphernalia.

Every spring, everything gets covered with yellow pinetree pollen (season of the yellow powder, my husband calls it) and then the cottonwoods over by the river unleash their pods of drifting white fluff. With the yellow dust and white fluffy cobwebs, spider poop on the bench, my front entrance was looking like a corner of a deserted ghost town. Finally a cat came and vomited in the corner of the patio (ewwwuck!).

So, I hosed everything down, put two coats of new colour on the bench, found some cottonwood branches to decorate the wall, and voila: I pulled my patio back from the living dead.