How do you decorate your porch, deck or stairs?

[Darlene]

I love walking or driving by homes to see what people put outside of their houses to add to the summertime look. Sometimes it's not something that thrills me like gnomes and wooden people bent over etc. (sorry lovers of that kind of thing) but often times I just really admire the containers and types of flowers people put together. I'm a big fan of flower boxes and love old time porches with wicker furniture and geraniums. What do you do to decorate for the summer? Old bathtub or bed of flowers? No flowers at all? What do you enjoy from others homes and wish to recreate in your own space?

[baxjul]

We have a small stoop. Not really enough room for chairs. I have an old bench, with a planter sitting on top of it.


My lanai, we have our porch furniture on. Not much decorations really.

[mauimagic]

I really need help in this area and would love to know what people do with small backyards!!

[thesightofoneself]

out front: bench, a fake pug

out back: two recline chairs, a grill, extra chairs, a fake pug

we have a real pug inside the house

[Libby]

We don't have a front porch area but my sister spray painted her 2 x 15 yr old chairs from Ikea. We also found a wicker table that she spray painted as well - all 3 items match b/c they're wicker and black. Looks nice

[rosey7415]

my front stoop is only a square slab, (ranch house) so on either side i have a large pot with an evergreen dwarf (tiny pointy shrub, don't remember the name) on either side of the stair, in one pot i put in a small flag. and since i make wreaths for a hobby my door always has a wreath on it and i constantly change it. then just a few feet away we have a little kidney garden. i have a yellow chain tree, and yellow varigated yucca, an all yellow theme. planning on putting a bench in there with a hanging plant on the seat and maybe a straw hat.

where i decorate the most is in the back. we just live on the patio in the summer. so going to the backyard you go down the driveway and on the left i have a bronze rooster, a resin rooster plaque that i hang on the fence. i have a small windchime there as well. this year i have burgundy and yellow pansies. then as soon as you come in the fence i have 2 more pots of the same pansies on a tree stump. then i have some on my patio as well. everything around the patio is green and lush. i put the patio in the middle of a garden. very shady. on my back door i have more pansies with a pale and bright mix fuschia color.

it may not sound very nice but it really does look good. i would love to have a nice white porch to decorate and are jealous of some of the beautiful ones that i have seen.

[KeithBC]

We have a pot of pansies on our deck that survived the winter and are really thick and bushy now. We got some calla lily bulbs last fall, and they are growing in pots on the deck. Under the eaves, we keep a couple of hummingbird feeders going until the birds leave in midsummer.

[IntlMom]

we have a bunch of annoying vinca that is so invasive..... on the fron porch we have a wicker seating area and table (I suppose I really should get out and clean)

[HandyMom]

What do you do to decorate for the summer?

Funny you should ask! Here's a shot of what's on my front porch along with a couple plastic chairs and a little round glass table:

All edible plants. Does that show I am frugal or what?

[McD]

We have a small wooden porch/deck thing. On the porch itself, we fly the flag, and have a small wooden park-style bench for Wesley and Moo as she gets older. Right down by our stairs, we have a huge wooden bucket filled with yellow pansies.

In the fall, we make a scarecrow and put on Wesley's bench. Then I always scare myself thinking there is some weird man sitting on Wesley's bench.

[jas]

not much going on on the front porch right now. I have had a small table and a chair with a plant on the table at times. Right now I am in the minimalistic phase. I do have two hanging spider plants they look like they need help though. I usually change them in the summer for some flowering basket. I have not done it yet though.

The back patio is where we have most of the decorating. Right now though dh is redoing the ceiling. Usually though we have a lounge chair with a small table next to it with a plant. We have a porch swing and a wicker couch and two wicker chairs and two tables. Dh just redid the pass through bar area. And out on the stone patio is a table with 4 chairs with an unbrella. also the assorted hanging and potted plants.

[pollypurebred39]

We have a rancher. The small front area (where the front door is) and the breezeway are made out of flagstone. A path of flagstone leads from the driveway to the front door and to the breezeway under the Japanese Maple tree that the original owners trained to look like a Bonsai tree. My DH put the flagstone paths in from the pile of flagstone on the property when we purchased the home.

Under the Japanese Maple DH planted a shade garden (the shade garden butts right up to the breezeway) filled with endangered species. We have 1 huge ceramic toad that hides within the shade garden, along with several small ones. 1 toad house, that is home to a few toads. We have 2 Asian style lanterns, both different (purchased at different times for Father's days) Within the shade garden is a beautiful cement bird bath a friend of our bought for us. We have LOTS of wild birds that have chosen to make their homes within the many overgrown shrubbery *blush* Within the breezeway is a mish mash of stuff, an old wicker sofa & love seat that are in need of recovering, a green plastic table and a few white plastic chairs (not my favorite but they were a gift), a grill. Wind chimes hung by the kitchen door.

Some of the stuff that's there that's got to go: an old well which was a prop we made for a play our kids were in a play eons ago, it so has to go. And yard sale stuff that's got to go to GoodWill.

[valerian]

On our covered front porch we have white wicker furniture; loveseat, two rocking chairs, table and also a white wooden table with marble top. Also have a couple of wind chimes, a wooden plaque house hanging on our house next to the front door and sometimes have hanging baskets (I usually end up killing them though!).On our deck out back we have a round table with four chairs and an umbrella, three fake Adirondack chairs, a grill, potted plants on the bench seating that goes around most of the deck, and a flower planter on the wall of the house next to the back door. There's also a light thingie that has three lanterns on it and candles inside. Next to the deck is our fish pond with the fish and water plants and near that the hanging hummingbird feeder, suet feeder, bird feeder, various flowers, plants, etc.

[Trentt]

I can only hope the friend who owns the woefully neglected house I live in will finish the small back deck he started ... 14 months ago.

My summer project will be to "decorate" the front porch by removing the piles of crap he left there when he moved in with his girlfriend, then cleaning it.

Meanwhile I'm converting the tiny front lawn to garden and have put up two trellises I made to cover up this messy hideousness. Morning glories are climbing one, pole beans and gourds the other.

[hotprincesscm]

I live in an apartment, blah! So I don't have an outside space to decorate...I do have stairs that lead up to my apartment(I live on the second floor) but have never decorated them...I have two boys and am sure that anything I put on or near them would be accidently destroyed. Living in apartments my whole adult life, I have never really decorated, I feel that spending a ton of money into decorating a "temporary" space doesn't make sense, because when I move again, whose to say it will work or fit in my next place? IDK...I would love a nicely decorated living space, but have no idea where to start. I should probably research it online! LOL I do admire all you ladies that can pull it all together and decorate your spaces so nicely!