Front Porch Inspiration

It's summertime!!!

Woo-Hoo!!!

I truly hope all of you are having a marvelous summer. 

I'm just popping in today with a quick post about my front porch inspiration, and then I plan to take a small blogging break. 

Don't worry, just a teeny-tiny little break, because I would miss you too much! And because we've been up to our eyeballs in summer fun in the sun! 

We've been going to the beach...

                

And to ball games...

               

And to amusement parks...

               

And in between it all I've been working at home, which is my favorite thing to do!

This is my front porch:

I have a folder that I like to go to for inspiring photos that I've been collecting. I have a "front porch" section in my folder. It looks like this:

                

It's filled with magazine clippings, mostly from old Victoria magazines. (Victoria is by far my most favorite magazine!) 

I don't like to save whole magazines. Instead, I'll tear out a page or two of something that really strikes me, file it away in my folder, then pitch the magazine. 

Sometimes I'll circle what inspires me and maybe even jot a note to my future self:

             

Then, when I go back later to look for inspiration, I have some direction. 

See?! My front porch now has a white swing with blue ticking pillows:

           

Another page in my front porch inspiration shows hanging basket ferns:

           

Isn't that arch just beautiful?! My house doesn't have that kind of architectural detail, but I can hang a few ferns! I really love the look of hanging basket ferns on old farmhouses, so I decided to do that this year:

           

Here's another magazine clipping that inspires me. I'm drawn to the blue hydrangea bushes and cement urns:

Yes, I know my house doesn't even come close to the beauty and character of this house, but I try not to let that discourage me. Last fall I had Micah rip out the dying bushes in front of our porch. Because of this picture, (that I've been saving for years) we planted Endless Summer Hydrangea's in their place.

They're babies now, as you can see, but they survived their first winter and came back green with the start of some blooms. When I water and fertilize them, I pray over them that they will thrive! The other day I noticed a faint hint of blue around the edges of the petals! Oh, how this thrills me!

           

Do you think my cement urns look like the inspiration urns?

I think they're close enough! 

                

I prefer to look to the old magazines for my inspiration, over what's new and modern these days. I literally, actually have the magazines that my mother and grandparents had from the 80's and 90's. I've been slowly going through them over the years, tearing out the pages I want to keep, so that I can pitch them to declutter. 

I'll have to do a post on this someday because when I'm looking through these old magazines I find myself thinking, "I wish young homemakers could see how much better our mothers and grandmothers decorated their homes compared to what we're doing." 

Everything's gotten too modern these days. And I always get the sense, when I see brand-new, generically decorated homes, that it's all meant to impress. We're losing the down-home, comforting feel in our homes in exchange for what will my friends think when I entertain? Or, I can't decorate well because I have little kids. I think it's a shame.

Yes friends, this certainly sounds like a topic for a future post! But for now, I'll leave you with a few more photos of my front porch...

              

Impatients always seem to do well on my porch each year because they're shielded from the sun.

              

              

Thank you to all of you who faithfully read and leave comments for me. Whether it's here or on the link that I post on FB, I truly appreciate the comments that I get! You are always so encouraging to me! Thank you! 

Keep enjoying your summer!

I'll be back soon...

~Courtney