Porch Makeover

After reading this article from Blueprint in the spring, I was inspired. A porch makeover is just the thing to make our funny little rental a happier place. Here’s what we did to freshen things up:

1) The door:
- Removed the screen door
- Painted the door handle and knocker silver
- Painted the door the perfect shade of green

2) The landscaping:
- Removed all the overgrown shrubs.
- Transplanted better looking plants from crowded parts of the sideyard to the front. I especially love the holly to the left of the porch.

3) The details:
- We replaced our ancient, spiderwebby, light fixture with one from Ikea. It’s beautiful. Plus it hangs lower and adds more welcoming light as you approach the house. Ben did the wiring himself.
- We replaced our mailbox with a shiny, red, Swedish one.
- We installed a new doorbell.
- We installed a new house number.

- We added terra cotta pots with combinations of red flowers. Here it is mid-September and the begonias are still trying to hang on. But Betty is doing her best to kill them off. We’ll replace the summer flowers with fall mums this weekend.

This was a great project. I love how the green and red details look against the dark grey of the paneling. The green door adds about a thousand gallons of personality. And now we get to say, “It’s the house with the green door,” when we’re giving directions.

You can see even more photos here.

Also. Here is the “before” shot on the day the shrubs were taken out: