Come Sit a Spell

Is there anything more quintessentially Southern than a front porch? Maybe  it's a classic, sweeping wrap-around, reminiscent of hoop-skirted belles and mint juleps. Or maybe it's weathered planks precariously tacked onto a ramshackle dogtrot where Meemaw sits shelling peas in her housecoat. Either way, a good house in the Deep South ought to have a porch.

As a good Southern girl, I've always wanted a proper front porch, but we've never really had one. We've had a stoop, a slab, and a deck, but they never quite fit the bill. My dreams finally came true when we bought this house. We had a porch! Unfortunately, it was a bit...lackluster.

It's not completely without charm. It has columns, decorative corbels, and runs most of the length of the house. But it's narrow- only 4 ft. wide, has plenty of cracks in the concrete floor, and the railings are in desperate need of a coat of paint.All those things will happen in due time, but when an early spring hit around the beginning of February, I started itching to do some porch sprucing. I'd outfitted it with some chairs, a small table, and a couple of decorative items when we moved in, but that was it. Spring fever calls for bigger projects.

I already had this sassy doormat thanks to my BFF!

Up first was the ceiling. It needed to be blue. Haint blue, in fact. Having a blue porch ceiling is an old Southern tradition that originated in the Gullah settlements off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina. You painted your porch ceiling, and often your door and window trim blue to keep the "haints" (think hags, demons, ghouls) away. Why a haint would be put off by a lovely shade of blue I do not know, but who am I to question tradition? As my spirit animal, Ouiser Boudreaux, says in Steel Magnolias, "Don't ask me those questions. I don't know why. I don't make the rules!"

 I spent an incredibly miserable day painting the ceiling a lovely shade of blue. (Soar by Sherwin Williams). Seriously, it was awful. If you have never painted a ceiling, I do not recommend it. I was so sore the next day, I could barely move my arms and neck. But it was so worth it! It was beautiful. When I was finally finished, I just laid on the floor and admired it for a good 15 minutes at least. (partly because I couldn't stand up).

Next, I had to cajole my husband into hanging the porch swing he'd gotten me for Christmas a month and a half earlier. It's not easy to find a swing that will fit such a narrow porch, but google helped me find a company that makes swings in a multitude of sizes (www.theporchswingcompany.com). On Christmas morning he surprised me with a very large box that contained the perfect 3' porch swing. He'd even upgraded to the one with cupholders- that's true love.

We finally pulled it out of the guest room, assembled it, hung it, and I slapped a coat of black satin outdoor paint on it. It was great, but after sitting on for a while, I discovered that the wooden slats had a definite numbing effect on my posterior. Luckily, I solved that problem with a delightful red gingham swing cushion from Plow and Hearth.

We were almost spring ready, but something was missing. We needed more cheer. We needed a bright red door. The house had a perfectly nice, very traditional black door. But I need a bit more whimsy in my entryways (more on that later- I've got a whole door post coming), so I had to go bright. Three coats of paint later (Showstopper by Sherwin Williams), it was finally time to relax on our charming porch with a very large glass of wine.

I'm gonna paint my front door red 

and change my name to Elizabeth Arden!

Best thing about the porch swing? This guy regularly sits with me!