Front Porch Decorating Ideas

I’m particularly excited about today’s front porch decorating ideas post because I feel like it was a collective effort from all of us that got the job done on this project. Teamwork makes the dream work and you guys came in clutch on this one! This front porch patio makeover was taking a lot longer than I’d hoped, and that was mostly due to the fact that I’d been hemming and hawing over what seating situation to introduce onto the front porch patio that was both super functional for us and of course, upped the curb appeal cuteness factor of our home’s exterior (always a priority, right?). In the process I considered every outdoor furniture situation imaginable – a set of comfy stained wood rockers, a nice bench rocker, full lounge seating and finally, a bistro set. Per usual, after staring at all of the choices for about 4 months and slipping into my usual design decision paralysis I threw up my hands and turned it over to you guys on Instagram via an admittedly lengthy polling process, and you were amazing! Your input on front porch patio furniture choices was so helpful in finally making a decision and getting this project done and I’m forever grateful for the help. Plus, it was just so much fun to do this with you guys!

Front Porch Decorating Ideas by popular Phoenix life and style blog, Love and Specs: image of a woman wearing a floral print midi dress and sitting at a bistro table on the front porch of a white brick house with grey shutters and a black front door.

Wearing THIS floral midi dress

As you can see, the winner was this too-cute sage and wood-look bistro set that’s so comfy, perfect for posting and up sipping coffee or getting work done on my computer (while watching the dogs trot by) and happened to be delightfully affordable, too! The sage huge of the weave on the chairs also happens to pair perfectly with our beloved new front porch barn light, which was another huge win. The entire set is also ultra durable, the chairs being made of an easy-to-clean plastic weave and the tables being made of metal with a wood-look finish. And that wood-look finish? So so good. There’s nothing cheesy about it, which was such a pleasant surprise when the set arrived.

Our sage bistro chairs and wood-look table.
They also have cute folding chair versions of our chairs in the same sage and a super cute blue.
I also love this round dining table to go with any of the chairs mentioned above if you have a bigger space to play with!

Shop Our Outdoor Bistro Set

Shop All of Our Front Porch Decor

Long story short, I love love love our new front porch patio and particularly love the functionality of the bistro set with the table. As you can see in the “before” snaps I included here, we used to have rocking chairs out here which was wonderful and so comfy, but we spend so much more time out here in the morning now because the table and chairs are perfect for working, eating or just relaxing. Versatile! This set is also much easier to clean and a lot more durable than our painted wood rocking chairs were. We’re happy front porch campers over here!

Our Front Porch Patio Before

So what exactly was included in this front porch patio makeover? Quite a bit, actually, even though it all looks relatively simple. Sometime down the line we hope to replace our old front door with a pretty stained wood Dutch door, but that’s another project for another day. All of the updates included in the front porch makeover are listed below so you can see how far this space has come since the last update.

We painted the entire exterior of our home with a fresh coat of Sherwin Williams Alabaster. (Read that post HERE)
We built new wood “shutters”, painted them in Sherwin Williams Agreeable Gray darkened by 60% and added black iron dummy straps. (Read that post HERE)
We built a new box to cover our plumbing and garden hose, painted it to match our shutters and added the same iron dummy straps to coordinate with the shutters.
We swapped our old front porch light fixture out for that new sage barn light you see here, which meant that we had to fix the batten on the front where the light sits (the batten had a big square cutout in it that fit the base of the old light we had there). We patched that piece of batten with another piece of trim that we cut to fit the open space, then used our router to make a round cutout in that trim piece that fit around the base of the new light perfectly. Then we filled the tiny seam between the new time piece and the old batten with wood filler, sanded so it so it looked like one seamless piece of wood, painted it and then installed the light. I have to say, it looks pretty flawless and I love the new light so it was worth the effort!
We added two new cement cactus pots that look like baskets next to our door that I fell in love with at our local nursery here in the neighborhood, Berridge Nurseries. They have the absolute BEST planters and pots (not to mention a stellar plant selection). These cement planters from CB2 look almost identical to ours if you’re love these.
Then we added the new bistro set to tie it all together!