Per usual the weather in Pittsburgh does not know what it wants to be this weekend. We had a relatively warm day on Saturday and Sunday it started snowing again. That one warm day started me thinking Spring might actually arrive this year, so I started thinking about sprucing up our exterior spaces in preparation of steady good weather. My husband and I discussed a couple plans for landscaping, since we still just have our basic builder plantings, but we aren’t 100% on those yet, so I will save talking about those for another day.
This weekend I concentrated on figuring out a plan for our front porch to take us into Spring and beyond. Our front porch is under cover, so there are some options I didn’t have at my old house. I wanted some seating, some plants and greenery and a bit of a modern farmhouse feel to match the interior decor of the house.
First up in my search was seating. I had a pair of rocking chairs or Adirondack chairs in mind. Finding a rocking chair that had good reviews proved really challenging. While my porch is under cover, it still gets exposed to rain and wind occasionally during a bad storm, so I didn’t want something that was going to disintegrate by May. As in most things, the more you pay, the better the quality of the rocker. It appeared I was going to need to pay about $300 per rocking chair to get good quality, versus $100 for mediocre quality.
This led me to Adirondack chairs. They can be found in a variety of price points, with resin ones being very affordable. My only issue with Aidrondacks were the size. I think I can only fit one on my porch versus two.
I am about 99% sure I am going to go with the rockers and probably buy the lesser quality ones. I am anticipating using them a lot this Spring and Summer, but you never know how things are going to actually work out and I am leery of paying big money for something I may use infrequently. My hope is the roof is going to protect them a bit and they will stay decent for awhile. I wavered between black and white for the rockers. White rockers on a porch are just so classic and black gives it a bit more modern feel. I am leaning towards black, mainly for the dirt factor. We still live in a construction zone due to the rest of the plan still being built, so I think white is going to get super dirty, really quickly.
Now that I have seating taken care of, I started looking for accessories. I already had this welcome mat and it still looks great. It’s huge, but I love it.
I was looking for a black and white outdoor rug to layer under my existing welcome mat. I love the layered look. I am figuring a 4×6 is going to layer nicely under it. I found a bunch of options under $100, some considerably under that number. Here are my faves.
One / Two / Three / Four / Five
While I love number three, I was planning on using black and white stripe fabric for some pillows for my rockers, so I think it might be overkill. I am fairly certain I am going with either number two or four, though the oriental version (Five) is interesting to me.
I currently have some dark, almost black urns on the porch and while I love them, I found these galvanized planters and I am in total lust!
I like that they look like a found object. I am thinking these with some green plants plus a large boxwood wreath hung with black and white stripe ribbon is going to finish off my space perfectly!
Once I get everything purchased and installed, I will share it on IG. You can find me there @saltyblondeblog.
Has the weather in your area turned nice yet? Has it inspired you to start on your Spring décor? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
