A Fall Porch.

Back in July Brent and I showed our front porch some love with the addition of new plants and planters.

With a little watering and a lot of rain from mother nature our plants held strong all summer and we really enjoyed them. However, with the cooler weather that's made it's way to Georgia as of late, our plants started struggling.

Like summer, these plants had run their course and we were ready to welcome another look for the new season upon us: Fall! With Halloween right around the corner we wanted our front porch to be visitor ready with a look that was appropriate for October all the way through Thanksgiving. 

A few weeks ago my PapaJack gave us some apple wood from his farm. He had given us the wood for Brent to use in his Big Green Egg and pizza oven. The wood came in various sizes, all on the slender side compared to the oak wood we already had in our collection. 

In the name of saving money and using what we already had, we decided to use the apple wood as part of our Fall front porch motif. I really liked how every stick was different, some with random knots and broken off pieces, making for some interesting heights and texture. So, we emptied out our planters and laid a few pieces of stack stone we had left over from the Outdoor Kitchen in the bottom of each planter to give the sticks some height. Next, we loaded each planter full of apple wood. It occurred to me as I positioned the apple wood sticks that this may be the best planter known to man-kind in that the contents  would require NO WATERING! Cha-Ching - genius status.

Crazy enough a lot of stores have their Fall decor marked way down because they are making room for  Christmas items, so I was able to snag a pretty Fall wreath from JoAnn's Fabric for 60% off. They almost had to pay me to take it. As soon as I got home I stuck it on the door and was so happy with the Fall colors against the bright red door, such a pretty mix! 

With my planters full of wood and the wreath on the door all that was left was adding a few pumpkins...

My sister Candace and her husband Jimmy brought us the white pumpkin!

....a model dog with black and white fur that strangely / awesomely resembles a tuxedo....

...and Hello Fall Porch!

The decor is subtle but offers a nice backdrop for Halloween and will transition nicely as we move into Thanksgiving. Speaking of Halloween, word on the street is we will be getting upwards of 50 trick-or-treaters on Thursday night and we are so excited! We decorated for Halloween (minus the front porch) on October 1st. We were literally  among the first on our street. Here's a view of our house from the street: 

With our house all decorated and our candy bowl fully stocked, we're ready for as many adorable 

trick-or-treaters as we can get! 

Happy Fall Y'all! 

All photos are my own. 

Front Porch Love.

Y'all, I'm becoming so domesticated. This new house has me interested in doing things I never before thought I would care about. Like yard work for example. A few weekends ago it was numero uno on the ol' "to do list." Numero uno as in before shopping, exercising, catching up on the DVR and hanging out with friends. WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME!?!

Here's the thing, I'm a proud homeowner. No, seriously a PROUD, obsessed homeowner. I've never owned a house before and I want this one to speak to you as much from the outside as it does from the inside. It's all about first impressions people. Think about it:

First impressions happen all the time. Whether you are meeting someone new, considering a book on the shelf, passing by a display in a window or find yourself mesmerized by the preview for next week's episode of the Bachelorette, first impressions are uber relevant and ultimately set the stage for things to come. Or, maybe more importantly first impressions set the stage for your overall interest based on your first glimpse of what could be. Deep I know, that's why they call me Yoda - HA. God knows the inside of our house has gotten it's fair share of love over the last few months, so what a shame it would be if our front porch didn't give people the right impression of allllll the hard work that has happened inside.

Below is a before shot of the front porch. 

Yes, that is Brent shirtless in the reflection. We have since spoken about wearing shirts for photos taken for the blog. OY VEY. :)

The house came with the cheery red front door, that may or may not stay. Still debating that one.....But do notice the engraved door knocker we got as a wedding present.

                                                    

Awhile back I used some of our Crate & Barrel gift cards and snagged two metal planters. I loved the color and the size was just right for our little porch.

While shopping for our flowers, we went up and down each and every isle, noting our favorites and discussing various grouping options. Not sure if I mentioned this, or if you could of guessed, but I know NOTHING about plants and chose everything strictly based on it's pretty factor. Brent's a tad more knowledgeable, but ultimately we just plan to fake it till we make it in the gardening department. Finally, we settled on four different plants that would all share the space inside our planters.

We started with some soil .

And then began loading in the various plants, one at a time.

Arranging and finagling the little devils into place.

  

A little pop of red.

Adding some Kool-Aid....

JUST KIDDING, it's some kind of flower growth potion.

And finally....................TA DA!!! A Green thumb is born.

Pretty snazzy, huh?

Pretty planters filled with beautiful flowers - check! But that door mat was not working for me. While our front porch is by no means large, the door mat looked drawfed up there on the stoop. It was out of scale and needed to be larger. Unfortunately the door mat was new-ish with all tags ripped off and the receipt long lost, so I decided to be extra careful with my selection of door mat #2. I searched and searched until  I finally found just what I was looking for at Pottery Barn.  My final selection: a black picture frame EXTRA LARGE 30" x  48"doormat. 

So much better, right?

Now that's one happy porch right there! 

Confession time... We actually planted these flowers about a month ago, but I couldn't publish this post because I was on the hunt for the door mat.  It's been hot here in Georgia, so we feared for the lives of our new plants. But, one month in and I'm happy to report that because of watering the plants diligently, the growth potion (Miracle Grow) and the monsoon we got over the 4th of July weekend, our plants are plush and still intact. GREEN THUMB CITY RIGHT HERE. :)

All photos are my own.