Dragonflies and Thistles: Back porch reveal

What is it about men that they think furniture isn't a necessity, or is it just my husband?

For years we lived with just dinning room chairs in our living room because he didn't think furniture was necessary. 'We don't use that room, why do we need furniture?'
Did he ever think that we didn't use that room because there was no furniture in it? Logic I know, I'll stop.

The result, I got really good at decorating with chairs.... really good, possibly too good.

But now you've seen pictures of my living room, so you say but you have furniture sooo what?
That is how I ended up with leather furniture in my living room. He tried to surprise me and came home with leather furniture. Now, don't get me wrong, leather is nice but personally the big bulky leather is more suited to a family room, not my small, teeny weensy living room.

I think he cringes every time I bring up furniture.
Today's conversation:
Him - 'You want to invest in outdoor furniture'
Me - 'Yes'
Him - 'Why'
Me - 'Because we spend a lot of time out here and to have something nice to sit in would be well, nice!'
Him - 'I like it with just the chairs, it looks good'
Damn he's right it does look good, not great but good. I got way too good at decorating with chairs, DARN IT!

Remember last week when I showed you my garden and porch? Well here's a recap -

This is what my garden looked like on Mother's Day just over a week ago.

Yes people that is snow. We ended up with 6 inches!
This was my porch last week....

Friday I am having a graduation party here and I really need to make it look, well great! My budget - I need to stay under $50.00 because at a party people need to eat and I have to decorate with balloons and such.. so the budget for furniture and porch items is small to say the least.

Well this is what it looks like today!

Ignore the big box... just pretend you don't see that!

I spent $9.99 on a dragonfly pillow from Target, regularly $14.99 on sale! I got the blue pillow at Goodman's for $5.99.

So other than cleaning up the chairs, moving indoor plants outside and shopping my house for baskets (that basket on the coffee table is the one I used for Easter as is the vase with the sunflowers) and other items I only spent $16.00!!

The hubby put away all the wood from in front of the hot tub, he scrubbed the deck and all the chairs for me. I swept and arranged chairs!

Oh, and he put up my dragonfly that I got in Moab, UT last month.

Let's take a bit of a closer look...
As you come out of the screen door immediately to your right is the dragonfly above and below it is this cute little cart I found in the clearance section of Home Goods in February!

In front of you as you come out the door I made a little dinning area, yep that is the same table as in the original picture...

Then to the left if the sitting area with all the chairs!

I like the basket empty right now, maybe on party day I'll put fruit in it but for now I like it empty with the silver tray. Yes it is the same basket I used for Easter decorating.

I also decorated the front of the house, after the graduation party I'll put up a flag and other Memorial Day things.... those will stay out till July 4th. As you can see in this picture below, everything is really green and budding though if you notice you can just see the branches of our tree and it is just starting to bud.