covered back porch

Like many houses in our development, we have a covered back porch. In our case, with the many trees around, our porch stays mostly cool, even on a hot summer day. Sometime down the road, I’d like to update the carpet and turn the room into an outdoor living room. In the meantime, I’m using the patio furniture from our old house, even though it’s not super comfortable. Because we use this porch infrequently, I decided to add some decorations and keep my eye out for an outdoor sofa on thrift to make the porch more attractive.

Last year, I hung 2 ferns from hooks. I tried to overwinter the ferns in our basement, but they look pretty pathetic right now. I picked up the ferns super cheap at Kroger, probably in May or June. This year, I’d like to put up more hooks and hang more ferns.

This shade was left by the previous homeowner. It’s falling apart at the bottom and the string has frayed enough that one can’t lower and raise the shade. Since the sun doesn’t hit the porch directly, being blocked by the corner of the house beyond the porch, I’d like to take the shade down.

I envision adding outdoor gauzy curtains to soften the space. We will need to invest in some hardware to make that happen. I’m thinking the curtains could be hung in the corners with an extra set in the middle of the longest wall.

I took advantage of the built-in shelf running around the walls of the porch to add some decoration. I bought a bouquet of fake lavender at Micheal’s Craft store on sale, and cut it up into smaller bunches. The jars are from World Market.

These jars are also from World Market and the bouquet is from Michael’s. I always buy items in 3’s since the odd number works better for decorating.

Since the porch is shaded, I decided to focus on fake plants with a few ferns added in. I bought a rectangular piece of green styrofoam at Michael’s along with the fake flowers and the fake plants above. The styrofoam was the only item not on sale. I need to add decorative rocks over the foam to hide it, and also make the plants heaver in case of wind gusts.

I used a kitchen knife to cut the styrofoam (shhh, don’t tell my dh). I had to cut some smaller pieces to wedge everything in. As I look at the height of the plants in the pots and the amount of exposed stem, I think I’ll trim the stems back at least 2 inches.

I found these metal shelves at Hobby Lobby last year. I think they were 30% off at the time. The fake plant on top is from Target, something my daughter picked out for her room. When she decided not to use it anymore, I repurposed it here on the porch. The plant below it is one of those fake plants from Michael’s. Because this plant drapes, it was easy to put it in the pot and not do anything else.

This fake plant display also came from Target. It’s not really my thing, but it works here.

Finally, my husband fixed this door to prevent the dogs from escaping. Both of the vertical bars had fallen out, allowing my lab puppy to get at the screen and tear it out. The hubs reattached the bars and put in a new screen. Fortunately, he had some on hand, thanks to repairs at our old house.