Decorating a front porch sets the stage and the feeling for the rest of the house. Our little back Cottage’s porch was in desperate need of styling after we renovated the roof to repair some water damage. After a quick trip to town for some clearance flowers, we set to work creating a welcoming cottage porch.
3 Things You Need To Decorate A Porch
Decorating a porch can be really intimidating, but we promise there is nothing to be afraid of- and perfection for you (doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s porch. Just do us a favor? Don’t use your front porch for storage. That being said here are some budget-friendly things you can use to decorate your porch:
- Pretty planters – the ones on this porch are actually plastic and we saved them from some dwarf roses that we got off the clearance rack and planted in the garden.
- Flowers – we get almost all of ours by starting seeds, or the clearance rack at our local stores like Lowes and Walmart. We’ve been able to find so many beautiful plants or plants that with a little TLC will be beautiful again for a great price.
- Something for the door – we’ve used wreaths, we’ve used baskets with flowers and all kinds of things be creative as you want to!
Shade Loving Plants For Your Container Garden
Our cottage porch and the surrounding landscape is full shade unlike the front of Rosevine Cottage, which means we had to pick out different kinds of plants to use when decorating the porch. We needed plants that could hold up to being in a pot, loves the shade and can put up with our ridiculously hot and humid Tennessee summers.
This year we went with red impatience that really thrive in our humidity in the window boxes. On either side of the door and on either side of the steps we placed hot pink planters with a mixture of shade-loving beauties.
We also did something we’ve been wanting to do for years! We added some hanging planters! Seriously we’ve wanted to this since we moved in but the thought of drilling a hole through your ceiling for a hook seemed a little scary so we just never did it. Until now that is. We found these beautiful white begonias in hanging pots for $3 at Lowes over the weekend and decided it was time to face our biggest “decorating a porch fear”. And we love the way it came out!!
Here are some more of our favorite shade-loving plants for a container garden:
- Impatience
- Begonias
- Hydrangeas
- Pansies
- Caladiums
- Torenia (AKA wishbone flowers)
- Coleus
- Artemisia
- Littletunia series petunias (make sure you check the tag, as some petunias need full sun)
- Rex begonia
- Lenten roses (AKA hellebores)
- Violas
Decorating A Covered Porch
Decorating a small porch can be a little tricky, a bench just will not fit comfortably not to mention a table. We went with two distressed white metal farmhouse style chairs, these chairs can be used indoor and outdoor and carry that farmhouse feel from our house out to our outbuilding. Also, these chairs are shockingly comfortable! We have a set around our dining room table and just love them.
On the door, we hung a cute wreath we made a while back out of a recycled garden hose. It adds that perfect garden touch to this little cottage porch.
Need some more tips and inspiration on how to decorate a porch? We put together an article with all of our best porch decorating advice.
We’re really considering painting the door a mint green or powdery blue, what do you think?
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