Decorating the Front Porch

5.21.2018

*I received a free product from Commercial Silk in exchange for a review. All opinions are mine. This post contains affiliate links.

Hi, my name is Amanda, and I am a plant killer. 

I have the blackest of black thumbs and have killed three succulents and counting. I thought succulents were supposed to be able to survive in the middle of the desert through a nuclear explosion, but whatever.

When CommercialSilk.com reached out to me and offered the chance to review one of their silk (aka artificial) plants in exchange for a blog post, I said heck to the yes. The only decision was what to get and where to put it. I decided to see if I could find something for our front porch and landed on this ficus.

One thing I love about our house is the front porch. When I take the kids on walks around the neighborhood, I always look at the front porches, and ours is larger than the majority of our neighbors. We have a large bush along the side that provides some privacy, and we have a big picture window in front. The window was original to the house 30+ years ago, and last January we put in a brand-new window. I absolutely love how bright it makes our front room, plus we could totally tell a different this past winter in how much better insulated it was than the old one!

But back to the porch. I love being outside as much as possible, and both R and J love being outside too. Since we bought our house 3 years ago, I've been slowly trying to make both our front porch and backyard areas nice, inviting places where we would want to spend time in the evenings after work and on the weekends. I am by no means a designer and will never have a Pinterest-perfect space, but I am loving the small additions I've made to our front recently! Now to get on fixing up the jungle that is our landscaping.... (Seriously, I need massive help in this area. I'm kind of ashamed of how it looks right now.)


Last year I bought a wooden bench from Wayfair, and I found a $10 table at Target on clearance that I put next to it. My new ficus tree fits perfectly on it! You can of course find outdoor pillows anywhere. The blue one was 50% off at Hobby Lobby, and I have two others that I bought last year at Lowe's.

My recent love is our navy and white outdoor rug from Wayfair. If you haven't shopped at Wayfair yet, you should! And today is a great day to do it, because they are having a big sale up to 70% off lots of items for summer. (This post is not at all sponsored by Wayfair, but I would be all over that if they contacted me! I love them. Their shipping are customer service are amazing!) I can't find a direct link to my exact rug, but they have hundreds of rugs to choose from at great prices. It's already been so nice to sit on outside on the floor with J and not feel the cold concrete! (Although now that he's more mobile he doesn't seem to care about that.)
I don't know if I will keep the ficus in the front forever, but for right now I think it livens up the space a bit. My next project is the front door itself. I'm considering painting it! It's just plain white right now, and I think it would be fun to choose something else.

Jordan is currently in the middle of a big project in the back: rebuilding our deck. The wood was old and splintered, and I never wanted R running around out there. I'm hoping he can finish it up by the time we have J's first birthday party!
(The white bench is a Craigslist find. And funny story, when I bought it, I didn't pay attention to the dimensions. We drove Jordan's truck to pick it up expecting a large bench and were confused when the guy pulled this out of their garage. We were like, um, we could have driven the Ford Focus. lol)

If you are considering artificial plants, check out commercial silk. The shipping was fast, and the tree looks really nice. Also, I can't kill this one! I will say that the first time my tree arrived in the mail, the base was all cracked and broken, but they were nice and sent me a new one, and it came just fine! I'm thankful for blogging providing me opportunities to try out things I normally wouldn't, and I am loving the addition to our front porch. 

I think the kids are too, although at the time of taking these pictures, there was a slight mishap with J wanting to steal R's cup of pretzels. She sat the rest of the time with her hand high above her head so he couldn't grab them. Ah, sibling love ;)

If you have any fun front or back porch ideas, please share!
The Girl who Loved to Write said...

I love a good front porch bench! And I'm the same. Can't keep any plants alive!

Amie said...

I can not keep plants alive either..ugh. Even ones that say they can take a drought I have killed. I love that bench so I will check that out. I need one for the front and back of our house and that is the perfect color!

Beka @ Sunshine to the Square Inch said...

I like your front porch. It's pretty and I think a fake plant is a great idea since you can't keep plants alive. =) HOWEVER, I think you could totally keep them alive. It's just a learning process. I used to have a black thumb too. And for your landscaping have you considered day lillies? You can plant them and they come back year after year. THey have lots of color options for the flowers and then once the flower is gone you have a pretty green bush. They are super easy to maintain.

Beka @ Sunshine to the Square Inch said...

PS - Totally paint your front door. It's so fun.

Jen said...

I love how simple your decor is! I'm excited to decorate our new porch.

Audrey Louise said...

Lol, I like R's defense mechanism.
Your porch is adorable! I love the simplicity. I need to figure stuff out for our front and back porches, too. Especially since it's so nice to sit outside right now. It'll be miserable in a month or so...

Sarah said...

what a cute porch! we have a big front porch that would be perfect for a bench...i may have to steal your ideas :)

Rach said...

R holding the pretzels above her head is hilarious! Sibling love for sure. ;) We have a couple of artificial plants in our office that I legitimately thought were real at first (they were given to us). I love them! I love that they liven up the area with zero maintenance from me! ;) Have fun picking a color for your door! We chose red for our door (white house with black shutters) and I love the classic look, but a few of our neighbors have doors of different colors and they are really pretty too! One neighbor paints her front door for every different season! It was orange in the fall, red at Christmas time, and pink for Valentine's/Easter. That's a little more work than I'm up for, though. ;)

Rach said...

Also, thanks for the heads up on the sale at Wayfair! I've been looking around for a couple of chairs and a rug lately so I'm hoping I will find something there today! :)

Rachel said...

I think all front porches should have a bench if there's enough space! Angel and I got a cast iron bench for our front porch in the US, and I loved taking our dinner outside to eat out there on summer nights!
Also, fake plants are great idea. We recently killed our tiny cactus that we'd kept alive for nearly a year. That was a pretty good go of things...

Kristen @ See You In A Porridge said...

oh my gosh i love that wooden bench. i need it.
i am also a plant killer. i bought some artificial plants and my cats ate them so.. no plants for us, fake or otherwise lol

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