Last week I showed you the style inspiration for my front porch makeover with Dash & Albert (part of the Annie Selke brands). And today I’m excited to pull back the curtain for the big reveal. The porch swing has been built and installed and we pretty much haven’t stopped talking about it since. I’m counting the days til fall because I cannot wait to curl up on it with a big stack of books and get under a soft blanket.
The house at Carlton Landing has a large front porch that extends the length of the front elevation. We have two sets of front doors, which is sometimes confusing to guests, and part of my goal in installing the swing was to make a more naturally obvious choice which door was the “main” entrance. The swing does obstruct part of the French doors on the left, but I shrunk the scale and size of the bed so that the doors are still functional.
TRIMARAN STRIPE POUF / SAMODE RUG / MINGLED DENIM POUF / TRIMARAN STRIPE PILLOW IN TANGERINE / LEXINGTON STRIPE PILLOW IN WHITE / LEXINGTON STRIPE PILLOW IN DENIM / MINGLED DENIM PILLOW
When you come up the stairs onto the porch, to the left is our porch swing (on the west side). We laid a big Dash & Albert Samode indoor/outdoor rug underneath to provide a little softness and texture to the porch – not to mention that we needed it to be able to handle Oklahoma’s crazy weather extremes. I am OBSESSED with these rugs. I’ve used a few different brands of indoor/outdoor rugs and NOBODY makes them like Dash & Albert. I don’t know what kind of voodoo happens over those fibers, but they are absolutely indestructible. We’ve bought a few over the years — I have bleached them, left them out baking in the hot sun, kids have puked on them, dogs have pooped on them and they are all still as good as new.
Can we talk about the Fermob bar cart for a second? This is the funnest little piece of furniture ever. Made in France by a company that provides all the outdoor furniture for the Parisian parks, everything is super durable and made to survive the outdoors. The bright punchy color is a fun contrast to all the blue & white and I appreciate that the top has a removable tray.
Since we did a nontraditional sized swing, I had to have a custom mattress cushion made. After going to the ends of the Google, I went with one from CushionSource. It’s covered in a bright white Sunbrella fabric with blue Sunbrella piping which made Simon twitch the second he laid eyes on it. “Are you sure you wanted to go with white?” Um, yes. YES I AM. So far I’m pretty impressed at how stainproof it’s proved to be, even in all its white glory. Jude spilled a red (IT’S ALWAYS RED, AMIRIGHT?) snocone on it and it beaded right up and rolled off. Plus it zips off so we can toss it in the washer.
TRIMARAN STRIPE POUF / SAMODE RUG / MINGLED DENIM POUF / TRIMARAN STRIPE PILLOW IN TANGERINE / LEXINGTON STRIPE PILLOW IN WHITE / LEXINGTON STRIPE PILLOW IN DENIM / MINGLED DENIM PILLOW
Jude’s also amped to take the cart out for a spin in a lemonade stand incarnation. Wouldn’t it be the cutest little food cart ever? 🙂
Now that we’ve been experiencing what I would describe as Southern front porch living, I can never imagine living without one again. It’s hard to describe why it’s so great – maybe it’s that seamless transition between indoor and outdoor living or the ease of chatting with neighbors strolling by. Over the 4th of July weekend, we sat on the porch and waved at everyone as they headed down the boardwalk to watch fireworks and we had a prime viewing spot right on the steps. We also had another big community dinner that weekend; everyone pulled their dining tables out onto the boardwalk and we shared dinner together. The porch was full of our friends hanging out, grabbing drinks and dessert from the bar cart, and lounging on the poufs.
Big thanks to my friends at Annie Selke for helping us with this makeover!
GET THE LOOK
