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Introduction
A front porch serves as the welcome zone of any home, a transition space between the public street and the private interior.
By decorating your front porch creatively when remodeling your home, you can transform this outdoor living area into an inviting and stylish extension of your personality. With strategic seating arrangements, potted plants, coordinated flooring and rugs, decorative lighting, and personalized accessories, your front porch can become an outdoor room that greets visitors with warmth and charm.
Benches and Seating
Providing comfortable places to sit is a front porch decorating essential. Various seating options can match your style and accommodate different size groups.
- Wooden benches: Rustic traditional or modern wooden benches offer sturdy spots for multiple people to sit. Built-in storage is an option.
- Porch swings: Hanging from the porch ceiling or mounted on posts, swings provide a relaxing place to swing and chat with visitors.
- Rocking chairs: Classic wooden rocking chairs give a nod to southern porch style while providing a cozy perch for one.
- Wicker furniture: Wicker couches, chairs, and ottomans bring a breezy, carefree vibe and withstand the elements with easy cleaning.
- Cushioned seating: Porch sofas, loveseats, and accent chairs outfitted with all-weather cushions and slipcovers offer plush spots to unwind with a good book.
A variety of benches, swings, chairs, and couches provides ample opportunities for socializing and appreciating the outdoor space from your newly decorated and welcoming front porch.
Planters and Potted Plants
Plants in containers and hanging baskets add beauty, greenery, and visual interest to front porches. Choosing the right plants and containers can truly elevate your porch's style.
- Hardier perennials: Geraniums, begonias, ivy, and creeping phlox thrive in full sun and tolerate some neglect, making them good choices for front porches.
- Hanging baskets: Ferns, fibrous-rooted plants, and trailing flowers spill over the edges of baskets hung from rafters or walls on the porch.
- How to arrange: Vary the shapes, sizes, and heights of containers for visual appeal. Group similar colored plants together for impact.
- Using wall pockets: Small wall pockets and ledges provide spots for herbs, succulents, and air plants that require little care.
- Frame the entry: Line the entryway and either side with large planters filled with grasses, ornamental trees, or architectural plants.
The right plant combinations in containers of varying styles can define spaces on the porch and complement your home's exterior, acting as a natural extension of your front porch decor. Periodic watering and fertilizing will keep plants thriving all season.
Flooring
The flooring you choose for your front porch can set the tone for your overall decor and complement your home's exterior. Several options can work well to make your front porch stylish and inviting.
Concrete Resurfacing
Stamped, stained, or dyed concrete floors provide a monolithic, low-maintenance surface with various textures and patterns that mimic other materials. A decorative border can be added.
Porcelain Tile
Water-resistant porcelain tile laid in interesting patterns mimics the look of natural stone at a fraction of the weight and cost. Groutless options are also available.
Wood Decking
Traditional wood decking made from cedar, redwood, or composite materials provides a classic, warm feeling underfoot and can be stained in various shades to coordinate with your color palette. For wood flooring, pressure-treated wood and exotic hardwoods are two of the most popular options.
Options for Covering Existing Flooring
Throw rugs, outdoor carpeting, and woven mats provide pattern and color when covering old floors. Rubber-backed options stay put without slippage.
Choosing the right flooring for your newly remodeled front porch can set the tone and style you wish to convey to visitors right from the moment they step onto your porch. The options range from natural beauty to traditional warmth to modern sophistication, allowing you to complement your home's exterior design and decorate the rest of your porch to match. But don't forget temporary floor protection when decorating front porch.
Outdoor Rugs and Doormats
Adding outdoor rugs and doormats to your newly remodeled front porch defines spaces and introduces patterns, textures, and color.
- Weather-resistant fabrics: Look for all-weather rugs made with synthetic fibers that repel water and resist fading from the UV rays of the sun.
- Coordinating colors: Choose rug and doormat colors that coordinate with your porch decor and complement your home's exterior. Earth tones often work well.
- Define different areas: Place small rugs under seating areas and larger rugs under tables to designate specific function zones on your front porch.
- Use doormats to frame the entry: Flanked by planters on either side, a flat or woven doormat can frame your front porch entrance and welcome guests.
Outdoor rugs and doormats let you customize specific areas of your newly decorated and remodeled front porch. They create zones for different uses while introducing patterns and color through materials that are designed to withstand the elements and years of foot traffic.
The rug and doormat options for your front porch decor allow you to set the welcoming and aesthetic tone right at your home's entryway.
Lighting
Decorative lighting adds ambiance, safety, and visual interest to your newly remodeled front porch.
Hanging lanterns: Rustic or traditional style lanterns cast a warm, inviting glow and fit a variety of porch styles. Choose solar or battery-powered options.
- Solar path lights: Low-voltage path lights that are charged during the day by solar panels illuminate walkways and stairs leading to your porch.
- Decorative light fixtures: Meshing modern design seamlessly with form and function, styles ranging from aged copper to contemporary glass add visual impact.
- Containers for candles: Mason jars, hurricane shades, and hanging lanterns transformed into candle holders provide a soft, flickering glow that enhances the porch's mood at night.
Lighting that carefully considers style, placement, and function transforms your front porch into a welcoming oasis visitors will want to linger in at dusk. Proper illumination also enhances safety and visibility, especially for steps and walkways.
From classic to modern, there is a range of lighting options that can highlight architectural details while establishing your design theme. The result is a front porch that comes alive as the sun sets over your newly remodeled home.
Conclusion
Go ahead - unleash your inner decorator on your freshly remodeled front porch! Add plush cushions, colorful flowers, mason jar lanterns, and anything else that makes you smile. Don't be afraid to mix modern with rustic, higgledy-piggledy with symmetrical - this is your outdoor room to play with! Let your decorating choices reflect the warm, welcoming personality of the home's inhabitants, inviting all who visit to sit a spell and enjoy the view.
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