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After 5 months of a complete interior renovation, we began to tackle the exterior of our home, along with the backyard. Since so many projects were overlapping, it really was a LOT on my plate for several months last year! After our new bulkhead and dock had been built, we started on the pool and back porch addition, along with an outdoor bathroom, at the same time. You’ll see why that was necessary in a moment.

You can read all about our pool in the blog posts below.
Modern Pool Design Plans
Modern Pool - Filled and Ready to Swim
Full Review of Ledge Lounger In-Pool Furniture and Pool Rafts

This is what the back of our house looked like when we bought it:

We replaced the standard sized sliding glass door that was here in our living room previously with a hurricane-rated 8’ sliding glass door. We now had a better view of the backyard, but our small ranch home had no protection from the sun or rain, so we chose to add a covered porch. We also wanted an outdoor bathroom aka pool bath, so that wet bathing suits weren’t dripping all through our house to use the guest bathroom down the hallway. I have to say it is one of the best decisions we made.

I’m sharing all the details on the pool bath in the blog post linked below: (coming soon)!

The porch is 21x10 with an overhang of two feet around the columns, to match the original 1970’s roofline. I wanted an A-frame style with as much open space as possible to let in a lot of light. Because we already tinted our doors and windows, I was extra concerned about it being too dark in our living room.

A portion of the footprint includes the half bathroom, as you can see in the image below.

Here are a few photos of the progress of our porch addition. It wasn’t a pretty sight, especially since the pool was being built at the same time.

I’m really into symmetry. If you notice there are two columns closer together on the right side of the porch. The engineer specified that we needed a third column for this distance, so I asked for it to be placed near the pool both so that the pool bath door would be centered between the two columns.

The color scheme I wanted outside was light and neutral, of course. So, white columns and framing made sense, since I decided to paint the whole house white too. The ceiling is a tongue and groove natural wood tone stain that pops against the white trim. I specifically asked for the slope of the ceiling to be continued in the pool bath instead of installing a drop/flat ceiling, which means the pool bath ceiling is also a pre-stained tongue and groove.

I didn’t spend too much time picking out a stain color because I gave our contractor a leftover plank from our LVP floors and he brought back a pre-stained sample of tongue and groove board that matched pretty well. I love the natural color.

I had the choice of hanging a pendant light or an outdoor fan here. Since I already put two woven pendants over our dock bar, I thought the fan with a built-in light made sense and would be much more useful in this space.

The ceiling fan is controlled by a remote and we’ve been pretty happy with it so far.

For the outdoor fixtures, I went with a modern matte black finish. I like the contrast against all of the white, but it also is way less noticeably effected by the salty air. We live by the water and everything deteriorates pretty quickly. We replaced the existent sconce light with this “up-down” cylinder light. There is a light on each end and I love the way the light casts on the wall. I also love how they don’t blind you when walking up to the door. There’s no direct light shining outward. We also added a new sconce light next to the pool bathroom door. Another awesome feature is that they have an auto on auto on/off feature from dusk to dawn.

The crew actually did a nice job of cleaning this space up after every project, even though it was the pool contractors who subbed out laying the pool decking (aka pavers). This is one example of our projects overlapping! The paint samples on the brick wall are from me trying to decide which shade of white to go with.

But as you can see by the above photos, we painted the gray brick a bright white. (Pure White by Sherwin Williams). The pavers were still covered in dirt and cement in the below photo and our turf had been installed. Eventually I’ll blog about that too. ;)

When the porch was finished, I had only ordered a pair of outdoor mesh chaise lounges for by our pool. But they filled this space until I could decide what furniture to order.

Above the sliding glass door we chose a vertical board and batten wall. My husband and I have tossed around the idea of building up if we decide to stay in this long term, and the board and batten would just be continued on the second story. Even if it’s not probable, it’s always good to think ahead and plan for the future.

I decided to use this as a dining space where people could gather when using the pool. It’s worked out really well so far! I’ll be taking some photos of this (almost) finished space to share with you soon! For now, here’s a look at the table and chairs I ordered. Everything is linked at the end of the post!

Don’t mind the random dog toys strewn about. ;) We still have our first foster fail, Sasha (the black dog) and our current foster, Betty (the boxer mix). They are a lot of fun to have around.

Click the link below see how our adorable pool bath addition turned out!

Pool Bathroom Addition Design

Sending Sunshine,
Jessica