Our Porch Facelift

Our front porch has sort of been a long term project for me. We've been working on bits and pieces of it here and there for the past two years. Now we are finally done and I am so happy with how it turned out. 

Now when we moved in it wasn't like it was absolutely horrible or anything but I was always planning on sprucing it up a bit just to give our house some more curb appeal. 

The Before: 

Step 1: Replace the front door. 

We HAD to replace the ugly red door. Now I know I could've just painted it but the door itself was physically broken and the previous owners of our house had attempted to fix it with spray foam. Spoiler alert- it didn't work. Because it was so broken it also was not very efficient against the elements. It let a lot of heat in the house in the summer and our heating bill was astronomical that first winter. 

We replaced the door in Summer of 2022. I purposely chose a design to compliment the two windows that are on either side of the door. We also added a retractable screen door so that we can have the door open when it's nice out and not attract all the creatures of the forest in our house. 

Fun fact: we replaced this door when I was like 1 week postpartum- would not recommend this but my dad was in town and we always have to take advantage of his help. Would also not recommend replacing an exterior door in the middle of summer- but oh well. 

Step 2: New Address Numbers 

I did a whole separate blog post on this- but basically I wanted to dress up our boring house numbers for something a little more sophisticated. You can read all about that project here: https://craftytravelgirl.blogspot.com/2022/04/diy-house-number-sign.html

Step 3: Building Planters 

I found an easy plan for these super cute planters: https://www.ana-white.com/woodworking-projects/easy-build-diy-planter-box

We constructed them from cedar to increase their longevity- especially in the PNW rainy winters. I painted them with white exterior paint- I'll admit this was kind of a pain because they were a bit awkward to paint all put together. We lined them with landscape fabric before we added dirt to them. You will notice that we made four but only two are on our front porch. We put the other two on our back deck.  This was a relatively easy project that could easily get done in a weekend if you are focused on it- but because we have a child and are constantly doing 600 other projects this took us a few weeks to actually complete. 

Step 4: Planting in the planters 

This is technically still a work in progress. Originally my plan was to buy 4 dwarf alberta spruces and plant one in each box. This is my favorite plant for a planter because they are green all year round  and can easily compliment all flower colors in spring/summer. I did this in the two planters that I put on the back deck but I realized that the front porch is not full sun. Unfortunately dwarf alberta spruces need full sun so this completely ruined my plan. In the meantime I ended up getting a beautiful variegated hosta from a friend but there wasn't enough for both planters in front. I planted it in one this year and hope to divide it next year as well as add some potato vines and impatients in summer to give the area some more color. Not what I had originally planned but oh well- I'm hoping in a year or two it will look good. 

Here is how I dressed up the porch for each season. 

In winter when the hosta went dormant we dead-headed it and used some left over evergreen from our christmas tree to fill the planters for a "winter" vibe. 

Overall 

I'm very happy with how the porch turned out overall- I am a but frustrated with the plant snafu- but oh well. I think eventually it will look good most of the year. I think it's a HUGE improvement from when we moved in. Minus the cost of the door it was a relatively low cost, easy project with lots of pay off.