Make an Entrance — Tips for Getting Your Porch Ready

What does your front porch say to your guests?  Come on in…go away…this house is vacant…or come around the back?

During this transition of September to October, I decorate my front porch with my alma mater, TCU, spirit.  I have a rustic pot stuffed with purple and white pom poms, pennants and white and purple twirly twigs.  I even put a verse from a school cheer on the chalkboard.  Add a few pots of ferns, some pansies, and a cozy place to sit.

Your front porch tells a story to your visitors.  Even if you don’t have time to do full-on decor like Martha, just put out a few pots of mums and a pumpkin, or two.  Be creative with the containers you already have around.  I took a pair of rain boots and stuffed them with purple and white mums.

I have a wrought iron table on the porch topped with a piece of vintage marble from the 4617 days.  I happen to have an outlet on the porch, which I think it a must, and put a lamp on it.  I love the coziness of the lamp instead of the porch light.

Now that we are approaching that time of the year with lots of parties and friends stopping by, here are a few tips to help you make an entrance…

• Stand out on your porch and take a survey of what people see.  Get the broom out and sweep away dirt and cobwebs around the doors, windows and porch roof.  Sweep the porch.
• Clean the windows.  Those Windex bottles you can attach to your outside hose work wonders.
• Clean out the light fixure glass.  The moths in there have gone on to their great reward a long time ago.  Replace blown out light bulbs.
• Do you need to get a new door mat?  Does it need to be cleaned with the hose?  Clean it while you’re doing the windows.
• If you have cushions on the porch do they need to be cleaned, hosed off, or replaced?
• Clean the tops of any surfaces, like tables, you might have on the porch.  Clean the porch furniture.
• Throw away dead plants that didn’t survive the summer.  Replace with pansies and mums that love the fall and the latter can be replanted in your garden when winter arrives.
• Do the fixtures or mailbox need to be repainted or touched up?  A simple can of spray paint can make your fixtures look brand new.
• Are your house numbers in need of updating or repainting?  About once a month, a guy comes by our house asking if we want our house numbers at the curb touched up.  I had Leen the Graphics Queen do our house number in vinyl lettering.
• Is the door clean?  Are their hand, paw, or shoes prints on the door.  Get out the 409 and give the door a good cleaning.  If you have a storm door like me, I trained Miss Bee along time ago to clean the glass.

Most of these tasks will take 45 minutes.  Teach your kids to do some of them while you sit back and read People magazine.

How will you welcome the first day of fall this Saturday?