Summer Front Stoop

Y’all, so many hosue projects these past two weeks, who am I?! I had this post titled “Summer Front Porch” but then thought, “who am I kidding, we have a stoop, not a porch.” I have a REALLY fun back patio reveal coming Monday with Grandin Road (y’all know I love them, posts here and here),  but I also have some Grandin Road goodies in our front that I thought it might be fun to share. I will preface this post by saying the front of our house needed A LOT of love when we moved in and still needs a lot of love, but we’re working as fast as we can / pockets will allow! Because we bought a bank owned property, they literally would not fix anything and the house was sold “AS IS.” So, even though we knew it needed some serious love, we felt like we couldn’t pass up the bargain and we rolled up our sleeves and took on the challenge (we don’t regret it yet!). We’ve already completely pulled out all the landscaping that was there, replanted some things (more to come), mulched, installed all new exterior lights. removed MANY trees and are starting to plant grass, and etc. To us, the house already looks completely different, and adding some special touches really helped make it feel more like home.

Our ‘New’ Front Porch

First and foremost, just “decorating” our front stoop made all the difference. I loved this Lab statue when I first saw it since we’re dog people and Penelope has named him Bingo. He’s my favorite dog because I don’t have to clean up his poop and he doesn’t bark, I wish I could say the same for the other two. We also did some rug layering on the front with this rug and this welcome mat on top and added some planters that I absolutely love. We finished the little stoop with a new address plaque and a pretty wreath that I tie bows on for different occasions (the 4th of July bow came after these pictures were taken). ***Buying a simple wreath you can dress up with ribbon or embellishments is a great way to stay in budget for holiday decor.

Here is what the house looked like upon moving in. It’s hard to tell, but all the landscaping was overgrown and dead. Also, this is a real life picture of the listing from our home, the bank didn’t even pay a professional photographer to take pictures…. None of those outside lights even worked.

 

Aside from having a welcoming little stoop, I am obsessed with these window boxes from Grandin Road that made such a huge difference to the front. They’re self watering and great quality and so far so good with our live flowers, but I’m sharing some window box fillers I got for when these pretties start to die (also from Grandin Road). We opted to hang them on the top windows because we knew eventually the new boxwoods would grow over the bottom of the bottom windows, and I personally like having some visual appeal slightly higher up (especially for hanging with 4th of July swag). I’ve been so impressed with their planters, we actually have these flanking our garage doors and two larger ones in the back I’ll share on Monday. They haven’t faded at all and are very heavy and durable. Win.

I absolutely love the quality of Grandin Road (and their holiday decor is AHHMAZING). Plus, they are a Cincinnati based business which I totally love since that’s my home town! Can’t wait to show you the back patio on Monday!

Now, like all “reveal” posts, here is what we still want to do to the front:

• New shutters (like ASAP after looking at these photos, ours are very faded)
• New Roof (not doing ourselves, obvi)
• Build front porch (just a small one over the front door)
• Redo driveway
• Replace some wood rot on front door (and back doors, too!)
• Plant more landscaping
• Paint house next spring (brick & trim — not doing ourselves, but trying to convince Aaron to do ourselves, I could be crazy)
• Grow/Fix grass
• Install irrigation system (we spend like an hour a day watering)

There is still so much we want to do, but I feel like in six months, we’ve already made pretty great progress (we’ve also had to spend some money on some not so fun things like gutters and drainage). WOOF.

Anyway, that’s our little front for now, as I said, I’ll continue to update y’all as things/seasons change. Meanwhile, have an amazing and safe 4th of July!

Now, a big cup of coffee and lots of work, including watering all these plants….ick.

What does your front porch look like?  Let me know in a comment below!

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