Spring & Summer Front Porch Décor Ideas
- Missy Carlin
- Jun 26, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 21, 2024
How I decorated my front porch for the spring and summer seasons
I live in Wisconsin where porch season is a truly cherished season. At the first signs of spring we emerge from our homes, skin pale but hearts full of excitement for sunshine and fresh air in the months to come. If this is what you’re picturing, it’s accurate:
Source: Portlandia
Wisconsin tends to play tricks in going back and forth from winter to spring, but we get to summer eventually. My front porch needs a lot of love to help bring life into it after months of being deserted since Christmas decorations were taken down. In fact there’s usually some kind of pine branches still floating around when I finally bring a broom to clean up the place. While it’s sad–looking, the pre-spring/summer porch is an exciting blank slate to have, especially with the endless opportunities there are to liven it up and bring it beauty.
When it came to decorating the porch this year I had a vision that tied in old pieces that I knew I would use from previous years like chairs and some planters, plus my annual hanging Boston ferns that bring a beautiful disheveled-ness to the porch, and some ideas for other plants and accessories to create a welcoming space for the sunny months to come. Here’s how my porch came together this year. I’m sure as summer progresses there will be some additions to report on.
Front Door Accessory & Welcome Mat
It feels like a lot of pressure to decide on what to feature as decor on the front door itself, since it is the place where people enter your home and that they are drawn to when they look at your house. I’m not a big fan of wreaths since it’s hard to find one with realistic-looking flowers that isn’t $100+, and with a green door I didn’t want to add a wreath of greenery that wouldn’t stand out. I was on the hunt for alternatives to front door wreaths, and after trying a placemat, looking at things like door knockers and baskets, I stumbled upon this absolutely adorable wall basket shaped like a lemon. I cannot stand how cute it is. While it’s not necessarily meant for the outdoors, I just had to have it on my door. I’m doing a little experiment where I lined it with a ziploc bag and planted some more ivy and little purple flowers in it
While it is absolutely perfect as-is, I felt the basket needed some black added to it to match the other black accents on the porch, so after MUCH internal debate, I spray painted the stem and leaf black. I really didn't want to because I love this basket so much as-is, but it needed to tie in to the rest of the black on the porch. I do like how it turned out! I found the basket at Anthropologie, but it’s made by a lovely brand called Roan Iris that sells beautiful handcrafted goods.
The welcome mat I chose also has black accents and I couldn’t resist the scalloped edging and ‘hello’ greeting. I layered another neutral rug below it for some more texture and depth on the porch. Take a look at all the items I used below– but know that investing in items you can reuse over the seasons outside your house is a great way to add character and save money so you can buy more ferns like me.
Front Porch Planters & Plants
Boston ferns are my favorite hanging plants to feature on the front porch. They create such a grand, beautiful, disheveled presence with their stems growing every which way and the way their little leaves dance in the wind. Also after watering the ferns became an almost nightly ritual a couple summers ago with my then-one-year-old-son I have a sweet spot for them in my heart. Ferns are a 10/10 choice for hanging plants, and easy to care for – I just drench them with water when I have the time.
I placed planters next to the door in various heights. I have a couple medium height planters from years’ past that I used this year and added a tall planter to create three different heights. The different heights create a lot of visual interest, and having a tall planter helps to balance out the height of the door. While the three planters I have don’t look a lot alike, their black color ties them all together. Planters are expensive these days, so I’m glad I had a couple to reuse.
I did buy the tall planter this year at Home Goods for $100 because I loved the texture and weight and height of it– however, it was white. Nothing a can of black spray paint can’t fix! I know I’ll use it again in years to come, so planters make great investment pieces!
HOT TIP– instead of filling up a big planter entirely with dirt, layer some recyclables on the bottom to take up some space, but still allowing a layer on top of them for your plant’s roots to grow throughout the season.
Boxwoods, Ivy, Impatiens, and Purple Calibrachoa (PSA: purple calibachoa blooms promptly died from lack of sunlight on our patio which has an overhang...but its leaves are still going strong!)
I’m not a big fan of too much color, and with a green door and window trim that can lean turquoise-y I decided to keep all my plants green with the exception of some pops of white and dark purple which I think is a great contrast to the black and green paint. I planted a couple of boxwoods with ivy, another fern, and some calibrachoa with a pop of a beautiful dark purple color. We have a window box where I added some white impatiens. With the exception of the ferns, the rest of the front porch gets mainly evening light, so plants don’t totally thrive under the overhang, but keeping them watered is doing the trick so far.
The Finishing Touch? Patio Lights
I wanted to add a little whimsical charm to the porch for summer nights which included the vision of drinking a glass of wine under twinkling lights. So I stapled a string of these lights to the porch ceiling-- and voila! A little atmosphere.
I can hear grasshoppers chirping their nighttime lullabies just looking at these photos
Home Takes Time
I was on the search for a few things that were very specific, but that I couldn’t find as-is in stores. Instead of exhausting myself trying to find a perfect item, adding a DIY element to things like the planter that was white and the basket that was one color tone helped to complete the vision I had. Hope that sparks some inspiration for someone else!
Another thing I think is worth mentioning is that like other areas of my home, my front porch refresh was a slow project that took probably 5-6 weekends to complete. With a full time job and full time children, projects like this require stealing moments during naps to plant, involving the kids in projects, and late-night spray painting…
Pineapple basket (because I think the Lemon basket is out of stock!)
Patio chairs (mine are old Target but these are similar)
Tall black planter (mine are a mix of HomeGoods finds but this is a nice-looking Amazon one!)
Do you celebrate patio season? What do you do to add life to your home after wintertime?
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