The Southern Porch I have always wanted!

Welcome!!!  This is my very first blog and I am looking forward to starting my new venture into "blog land".  I feel I must explain my blog name.  I am a first time grandmother and I didn't want to be called "granny", "me maw", "mimi" (that's what my sisters are called and confusion would abound on holidays when we are all together), or "nana".  Not that there is anything wrong with these names but I felt as though I was a bit young for them - or at least I felt like I was young!!   Besides, ask my husband, I always want to be different.  Therefore, the term "Lolly" is what my little granddaughter calls me.  Enough about that!

I grew up in a very small town in the upstate of South Carolina.  My parents bought an old house, redid every room (must be where I got it from because I do the same), and added a screened in porch and a very nice carport.  I lived on that porch, dated on that porch, listened to condolences on that porch from my father's passing, held my sister's babies on that porch and just sat on the porch listening to the outside world.  I loved that porch.

Once I was married, I told my husband we had to have a house with a porch.  Needless to say, our first five years of marriage were spent leaving work at 5:00 on Friday afternoon to go to the beach or the mountains and returning on Sunday night only to get ready for work again on Monday morning.  There wasn't much thinking about porches during that time.

Then came children ( and we all know what happens when children are in the picture - NO EXTRA MONEY!!), me no longer working, etc, etc, etc!!

Move ahead to after children's college graduations and one child's wedding and guess what?  We started building a porch.  Here's the catch - my husband wanted to do it himself!!  Now, my husband is very particular and wants everything to be done right - as do I.  But, my husband is also a very, very busy man.  He is a college and high school football official as well as a statistician for a local college basketball team and a statistician for the Carolina Panthers and has a full time job at an energy company.  Needless to say, there would not be a porch built in a day - if you know what I mean!

With all of that being said, the old deck was eventually torn down and the process had begun - Yay!!

Mind you, it stayed just like this for quite a long time.  We could only enter from the front entrance and with two little dogs and hardwood floors, that was not something I enjoyed.  I had to carry groceries in from the front of the house, take the dogs out from the front of the house....I hated it but I wanted a porch so I endured it.

But, eventually, a roof was added and we could see the light at the end of the tunnel - so to speak!

My sweet husband putting the shingles on the roof - bless his heart!!

Oh yes, one thing I left out about what I wanted.....a BIG porch!  I wanted a porch big enough so dogs could run and kids could play.  This process took about a year so I won't bore you with all of the details.  The finished product is my haven and I absolutely love it! It was well worth the wait and I am still tweaking to this day.  Are we women ever satisfied??  My husband would definitely say "NO!".  But he likes it :-)

This is my husband's sitting area for smoking his occasional cigar.

The sittng/sleeping area - love, love, love the bed/swing!

(There is still some tweaking goin on here)

We eat out here, we sleep out here, we read out here....we never stay inside unless it is just really, really hot.  And it has been very hot this summer!  My second post will about the bed swing and a few other things so stay tuned!!