Maybe it's just me...but I don't find your use of materials and colours shocking at all. I find them nice and also lovely. I can think of much more shocking presentations that you could use. It seems to me like you have it just right the way it is.
So, I decided to add a little more color to the porch by painting the old, beat up and weathered wood chairs that are out there. A couple of them were falling apart (so Ed nailed and glued and made them sit-worthy again.) I didn't want them to look all bright and shiny new, though I did want them to look....I don't know....happy? Just bright, but still sort of old. Did a little .... I don't know what to call it ..... distressed painting is what I call it, though I have no actual clue what I'm doing. It's where I don't cover everything with an even coat of paint. Just sort of hit it with some spray paint and then rub random areas a bit to remove some of it. Here's a before of two of the three chairs in question, and getting started on the first one. And then here's an after of the grouping of the three that I painted. There's some carved detail on the chair I painted yellow, I did a bit more close up of it so you can see how well the painting I did turned out...not that *I* did anything in particular...the carving did all the work!! I just went really easy on the paint up there so it didn't get into all the crevices, and then rubbed some, and voila!! I like the way it turned out! The blue armchair looking one is something Ed made with his kids years ago. I have a cushion for that already, and I'm going to get some happy looking cushions for the yellow one and the green one. There's another folding chair that I didn't get to yet, but I have the paint for it....red this time! I tried to pick up the colors in that rug I got for the porch so that even though the furniture is a complete mishmash of styles, the colors unify everything. This porch is a fun project!
