In the south in the summer, our porches aren’t just facades they are outdoor rooms.

…But what about winter?

We said goodbye to warm summer days with hanging ferns relaxing on the rocker or porch swing but we still desire to enjoy our porches year round. Once we remove all the summer flowers with the trademark ferns, our porches lose their invitation for a visit.

This year, we decided to make some minor adjustments to give our front porch a winter appeal while preparing it for a potentially harsh winter. Sometimes minor additions to a project can have the biggest impact. We purchased large shutters at an architectural salvage for 30.00 a piece. They are for design only. Even though they are hinged to look authentic they aren’t designed to fuly cover the door.  After repainting the porch, adding a baseboard, painting and installing the door shutters, hanging two lanterns, planting winter greenery and hanging cedar garland above the windows for Christmas we created a great Winter Porch!

Watch our short video to enjoy the porch transformation process!

We really like the look of the plantation style door shutters but adding the hanging lanterns really created the exclamation to make it eye catching.

Adding a boxwood wreath for Christmas contrasts nicely to the bean color of the shutters.

To keep the lanterns stable when the wind is blowing we screwed in eye hooks to the shutters and lanterns. We then attached a small chain from the lanterns to the shutters. They can be easily tightened. The chains look nice and do a tremendous job in keeping everything secure on a windy day!

Adding baseboards provided clean lines from the porch to the siding.

Now we have an inviting Winter entry!

A mixture of evergreen, cabbage plants and white pansies creates enough green to add life to a Winter’s Porch. We will relocate the Alberta Spruce to the yard in the Spring!

Please share with your friends!