PORCHES CAN BE SO PLEASANT

I love front porches. Most of our homes have had a nice front porch. Our home now, has a pretty small one. During the summer, I usually have a bench, a banana tree, and a plant stand with several flowering plants. This year, I need to keep it simple. 

We've decided to paint our front door black.  When we first bought the house, it was green. Over the years, it faded and just recently it was damaged by the Realtor lock box. 

Once we get the door painted, the lock box is going to have to go somewhere else. In addition to painting the door black, we thought about painting our worn out bench black too, but wasn't sure how it would look. As I was traveling around the internet, I got a little inspiration from this web site; Gracious Southern Living. (I love all the things on this blog.) That is where I came across this picture:

(source) 

Isn't this gorgous? As I mentioned, I have a bench. This one looks a lot like it, so I tried painting mine black. I also went shopping for some plants. Originally, I was hoping to get some white flowering plants, but I could not find any that were big enough. Then I went to Walmart, and they had a one time buy----palm trees. 

I love palm trees, and these were only $9.88! I have had a large palm tree on this front porch before, and it did really well during the Spring and Summer, so I bought two. 

Now, all I needed was a little softness, so I headed to Kohl's. They were having a sale, AND, I had a gift card, so I bought a couple of pillows. Wound up spending $4.80 out of my pocket. Can't beat that!

Here is the before picture:

Kind of boring, don't you think?

This is what it looked like last year (before I replaced the ficus with a banana tree):

And, this is what it looks like this year before I added the pillows:

Looks a lot like my inspiration photo doesn't it?


My husband worked hard painting the front door black.

After the door and bench were dry, we added the pillows.

I love it!

We were at Sam's the other day, and they had palm trees on sale too. These were much bigger, and cost a dollar more. We decided to go ahead and purchase one for the back porch.

I sure enjoyed sitting on my back porch and talking to my mom yesterday afternoon.