Bertha Heathcote
I wasn’t planning on switching my porch over from spring to summer decor. In my mind, there’s so much overlap between the two – colors, flowers, greenery – you really could get away with decorating for spring and just leaving it until the fall.
I struggled every season to decorate (except maybe Christmas) because that red door clashed with everything.
Also, the alcove on the porch itself was light blue, which I could probably live with, but it wasn’t my color of choice.
So, if I was going to pull everything down to paint, I wasn’t sure I wanted to put it back up the way it was. I chose a Fresh Market Flowers theme for spring, which I loved (you can read more about how I decorated my porch for spring and picked a theme, on a budget, in this post).
So, those two things combined made the decision for me to switch over from spring to summer decor on the porch. I wanted something clean and simple for the porch, with a nice contrast and a neutral palette.
However, I wanted the summer porch to just be soothing and relaxing, so I went with neutrals: tan, white, green, black. I bought the plant hanger from Hobby Lobby for 40% off their spring collection. You just need to give the bottom row a pretty good gluing all the way around. In retrospect, I would have liked the white and tan rope to be the same 1/4″ thickness, but I just used what I already had at home.
The pillow…I can’t even remember but I know I bought it before my sons were born, so that was more than 5 years ago, lol. I also used the spray paint on the sign (which was a Dollar Store makeover) and on the ceramic container (that top part used to be mint green, which I bought as part of a farmhouse bundle on Facebook Marketplace). The greenery inside is fake – the eucalyptus from Walmart for $3 and the other greens were part of the bundle I got on Marketplace.
The Blessing Sign on the left I got from Hobby Lobby last year when I first moved into our house in December 2018. I really wanted something meaningful on our porch that would welcome our guests, and the Aaronic Blessing was perfect. And, if you like Kari Jobe, you know this song is trending now, which just makes me love it more.
I used the same spray paint as the chair and ceramic flower holder (which was a satin finish – not my favorite but I wanted it to match). After I spraypainted it, I used soft-grit sandpaper to scratch the surface to rough it up and let some of the white come through.
Then, I created and printed out the text for the sign, in Bellamy font.
To make your own sign without a Silhouette or Cricut is pretty easy.
Once your print out your text, color with pencil on the backside of the paper, where the letters are. Using a ballpoint pen, trace over the letters so it transfers a pencil line on the sign to fill in.
Once you finish tracing, take an extra-fine point Sharpie or paint pen and retrace your lines and fill in! Once it’s fully dry, take a clean eraser and remove any extra pencil lines. I cleaned that up once I was finished by smudging some spray paint with a Q-tip! To distress it a little further, I use a white chalk marker, added a few lines and smudged them a little.
You can also use white paint and a make-up sponge to distress (just make sure you blot it REALLY good). The vintage window was one I found on Facebook Marketplace back in New York for $10 before we moved to Tennessee.
In the future, I will probably hang a wreath on it, but because the fern is there, I didn’t want it to be too busy. We are having issues with getting our circuit break fully shut, so it’s not installed yet, but I’ll update once it’s all done! In this post, I give all of my favorite tips for decorating on a budget, and here, I talk about specifically how to style a porch (it’s for fall, but a lot of the techniques carry over). If so, here are some amazing ideas to create the summer backyard of your dreams – budget-friendly tips and cheap ways to decorate, of course!
Fast, Easy, Cheap Ideas to Decorate Your Home for Summer (Farmhouse Style!)
