5 tips to enhance your porch
Warm weather is setting in, and that means it’s time to start spending a little more time outdoors. If you’re lucky enough to have a porch or deck attached to your home, it’s a perfect time of year to start having meals or cocktails outside. Additionally, it can just be a great place to socialise with friends and family.
A porch often needs a little bit of work coming out of the colder seasons. Chances are you’ll need to touch things up a bit, and now is also a nice time of year to do some genuine repair and design to take your porch or deck to the next level! You may seek Screen Porch Enclosure Services to help install a privacy enclosure to your porch. That way, it’ll look its best and be its most comfortable for the warm, pleasant months ahead.
To some extent, your efforts will depend on the layout and design of your porch or deck, but in general here are a few genius ways to go about making improvements.
1. Paint The Ceiling (In Colour)
Here’s a step most of your guests would never expect to see. It’s suggested in this slideshow of porch decorating ideas, and the example provided is a gorgeous porch space with a sky blue ceiling to match cornflower blue furniture cushions. Le sigh! Most simply don’t expect this kind of complete design in an outdoorsy area, and while it’s still a porch space, adding some colour to the ceiling effectively makes it feel like more of a “room” (that happens to have terrific air flow!).
2. Mix In Modern Furniture
This is another brilliant tip from the slideshow mentioned above, and it’s one I know I never would have thought of myself. If you spend a lot of time on your porch or deck during the warmer months, you may well have some wicker chairs or sofas or other pieces built for the outdoors. These tend to look fairly traditional, and offsetting that look with a few pieces of modern furniture (such as a sleek, angular coffee table) can lend a look of sophistication to the area.
3. Sand Down The Floors
This is a job many would sooner leave to professionals. However, this site’s display of trade-rated personal sanders shows that that isn’t necessarily the case. You can easily get your hands on an affordable and easily managed power sander and have the whole job done in a matter of hours (depending on the size of your porch or deck). And you may just be surprised at the effect. If this hasn’t been done in a few years, your floors are probably rougher than you realise. Sanding them down simply makes the space neat and so much more comfortable.
4. Stock Up On Potted Plants
This may seem like an obvious trick, though many of us are also inclined to rely on mother nature to do her job. That’s to say, the porch is already outdoors, and if there’s a garden or nice yard around it then adding plant life on the actual porch may not seem necessary. Nevertheless, these examples of beautiful summer porch décor have one thing in common, and it’s the presence of potted plants! Whether you go for bursts of colour or a simple green, a nice collection of plants on and around your porch makes the area more relaxed.
5. Light The Flames
For that final, brilliant touch, find a way to incorporate some candlelight in your porch design. For long evenings sipping red wine or talking with friends or family on the porch, nothing’s more satisfying than a flickering flame. Odds are your nearest gardening centre or even furniture store will have plenty of affordable fixtures from candlesticks to various types of contained torches. Having a few of these outside turns the porch magical at night.
The best thing about all these ideas is that they can all be used fairly simply! Even painting the porch or sanding the floor isn’t much of a hassle once you have the necessary materials to get the job done. And with a few of these ideas in action, you can truly take your porch or deck to the next level this summer.
By: Melissa Howe
Melissa Howe is a London-based freelance writer. When she’s not researching her latest DIY piece, Melissa enjoys spending time with her two dogs, reading, and crafting.