Front Porch Ideas to Help Your Home Make a Great First Impression
Nothing welcomes guests like a well-designed front porch. It's the first area of your home that your guests and neighbors see, so let it shine bright! Your front porch can be so much more; it can offer a place for entertainment, relaxation, and seasonal decoration. Most importantly, it can be a reflection of your style and taste. If you are struggling for inspiration, here are some front porch ideas for every house and season. Get planning your next front porch makeover and allow your personality show before family and friends even walk through the front door!
The Farmhouse Front Porch
Choose your favorite color and make it the underlying theme for your front porch makeover. This Hometalker recently built a new home but made sure their front porch reflected their personality. A bold red door, red furniture, and matching flowers in the hanging planters blended well with the crisp greys and whites alongside the black shutters, giving the finished look a Midwest farmhouse chic. Get tutorial here
The Front Porch Pergola
A pergola adds both additional space and some essential curb appeal to your home. When this Hometalker assessed the plain-looking frontage to their home, they decided it needed something more than just updated yard space. Using the garden path as the guideline, they filled in the space with some patio stones and constructed a timber pergola. After allowing the wood to dry out, they painted it white and added front porch seats, plants, and a swing. Get tutorial here
Front Porch Swing Bed
Try something different from the traditional porch bench - like this porch swing bed. Not content with repainting their front porch in a contemporary grey and white, these Hometalkers went one step further. After sanding down the existing floorboards and overpainting it, they decided to add a swinging bed using a pallet, a single mattress, and some thick rope. The finished look is both rustic, clean, and upcycled. Perfect for lazy Sunday mornings! Get tutorial here
A Whitewashed Wall with A Bold Front Door
Never underestimate the power of a boldly colored front door - or a whitewashed wall. This front porch makeover includes a stenciled floor with Moorish circles and a front door painted using Crate and Barrel’s Modern Masters. The way the vivid green door underpins the entire whitewashed front porch allows the stenciling, chairs, and surrounding plants to really flourish and shine through. Get tutorial here
The Christmas Front Porch
Don’t pass up the opportunity to dress up your front porch. Adding a well-decorated tree is one of the most welcoming sights for visiting family and friends. With just simple front porch lighting, it becomes visually appealing day and night. Adorning the rest of the area with added sparkle always lights up the cold, dark winter nights. This Hometalker used decorations they didn’t use in the house anymore to offer a welcoming gift to all their seasonal visitors. Get tutorial here
Installing New Front Porch Railings
Your porch handrail is always exposed to the elements, so sometimes it’s best to replace it. Replacing old front porch railings doesn’t need to be a pain. This Hometalker decided to install Richmond Rails and balusters. The key to their project was measuring, getting the positioning of the balusters and railings spaced evenly. A quick hack is to fix everything in pace with glue before screwing it in to make sure everything fits correctly. Caulking the gaps and adding varnish keeps them watertight and lasting. Get tutorial here
Big Ideas For Small Front Porches
Not everyone has a big porch, but even small porches can be made to look welcoming. This Hometalker’s biggest piece of advice would be to never underestimate the power of a good, clean porch. Dust off cobwebs and brush down and clean the glass, walls, and ceiling. Simply adding a small planter, flowers, watering can, welcome mat or rug, and lighting can spruce up your entrance and welcome both you and your guests back home. Get tutorial here
Rocking the Front Porch Look
According to some people, there's nothing like a rocker on the front porch. This Hometalker makes people feel welcome by offering rocking chairs and a bench too, encouraging friends to sit for a while when they visit. They even went so far as painting a rug on the floor too, leaving no doubt as to their homely intentions for them to stay and chat. Get tutorial here
Front Porch Privacy
Floating lattice panels add privacy to your front porch as well as being a real design touch. The key to this Hometalker’s front porch privacy panel was using thin chains and metal eye hooks to suspend the panels, making them appear to float in the wall space. A wall feature like this allows the rest of the porch furniture to look balanced in both indoor and outdoor spaces. Get tutorial here
Front Porch Welcome Sign
If you have extra latticing from your privacy screen, why not convert it into a welcome sign for your house? This Hometalker used just a chalkboard, lattice, spray paint, and an old metal butterfly to create a welcome sign for all seasons. Using Rustoleum to restore the butterfly and then a fast-drying polyurethane coat breathed new life into an old piece of metal - while the lattice board really didn’t need much more than a quick sand and varnish. You can change the greeting once in a while as desired. Get tutorial here
Front Porch Makeover On A Budget
This front porch transformation owes much to some careful wooden box work. For less than $200, this Hometalker managed to convert a shabby-looking front porch with metal scrollwork columns into something solid. The big change for this porch involved boxing in the metal columns with plywood and painting them white to match the shiplapped walls. These boxed columns allowed the repainted furniture and accessories to shine. Get tutorial here
The Fall Metal Front Porch
Metalwork can be such a distinguished feature, sometimes it’s a shame to cover it up. When Hometalker Christina found this old iron wagon wheel planter, she knew it would work on her front porch. The metal work of the planter matched the old iron framed bench. Painting both a matching blue and decorating with Fall plants works really well against the purple-brown coloring of the door and shutters. Get tutorial here
The Blue Front Porch
Color coordination is a key design aspect of any project, with this front porch decorated in shades of blue being a great example. It works because this Hometalker has used the underlying grey color on the walls of their home to base their colors against. Neutral colors, like white, black, grey, and all shades of brown are ideally blended to any outdoor color scheme. The final touch was adding the grey-brown rug, tying in the furniture and accessories perfectly together. Get tutorial here
