Here it is, the latest and greatest Vlog. Just a quick tour of the front porch decorations at the Frugal Upstate house.
I love to decorate my pretty wrap around porch! The porch is one of the things that really sold us on the house-tremendous curb appeal. All spring and summer I had lovely flower boxes all along it. When they died, it looked so bare that I HAD to do something.
Now I know, I could have left it plain, but it makes me very happy to have my house look pretty-I like “curb appeal”.
Now I know this isn’t exactly bargain basement decor-and all of the stuff that was really frugal was dependant on my own personal situation-after all, not everyone knows farmers willing to give you free corn stalks, or friends with gardens who are looking to get rid of extra pumpkins!
But many of the principles remain the same. If you are looking to invest in any decorations, like I did with my garland, make sure they are things that will last and will be used over and over. Also, consider that “fall” decorations could actually last from Sept-Nov, whereas “Halloween” specific are only for the month of October.
I could have “Halloween’d” up the front porch even more by using my baseline fall decorations, and then adding some fake cobwebs and spiders for example. Then those items could be taken down again, leaving the “fall” up until it’s time for the Christmas stuff to come out.
Now I’m just worried, what will I do from mid January until it’s warm enough to put the flower boxes back up? My porch is going to look so bare and lonely. Any ideas?
Believe it or not pansies will grow in your boxes in winter. They are very hardy but will wilt after a frost and pop back up when the sun comes out. We are just a bit North of you (in Western NC–I think you’re in upstate SC aren’t you? Not upstate NY?)and my Dad planted pansies in our flower beds last year. They lived all winter.
Oh, and WalMart has them for cheap right now.
Oops, sorry. I see you are in NY. I don’t know if the pansies will work where you are, but we do live in the mountains of WNC so we have quite a bit of cold weather.
You could try it.
Or, I saw once where someone filled their boxes with pincones. I thought that was pretty, and simple.
Pansies will definitely not work up here in NY.
I’ve seen people leave their green (unlighted) garlands up through the winter. Then again you might have lovely snow decorating your porch railings so that is decor, as well! š
You could do faux green topiaries in plastic “terracotta” pots on your porch steps–I think I would prefer one or two really chunky ones at the bottom of the steps.
On the porch itself, put a lamp (lit at night, of course) on that table between the chairs for a wintery-warm look.
If you get lots of winter snow, a family of snowmen across the front of the porch would be added cuteness and certainly an activity for the children.
One look that I absolutely LOVE is curtain panels on the front porch. A few blocks down from my mother’s house someone hangs white gauzy panels every spring and they stay up through summer–really, really pretty on their blue-and-white home. You could do a warm color in a heavier fabric (with weighted bottoms so they don’t flap aroud?) for added color thru late winter. Maybe you could dye dropcloths for that, and they’d last a good, long time.
The holiday greens can stay up until the end of January-it IS still winter. Then in February the Valentines red and white decor can be added to the green. By March the St Pat’s Day decorations can be festive -you don’t HAVE to be Irish to celebrate St Pat’s Day- and then by April you can start getting Spring-y with Easter decorations. Then it is time for the real flowers that are frost hardy like pansies.
What do you think of these ideas?