Blue Cottage Decor: Our Porch and Yard

I finally get to show you the outside of our Blue Cottage!

We’ve lived here now for a year, and in the fall I finally found the time to get pictures taken of the outside of our house.

My friend Kelly came over and took the most wonderful photos.

I’m so glad we got them done when everything was still green — by now we’ve had the first snow storm and the whole house is decorated for Christmas.

But before I show you that, I wanted to show you these pictures.

This is what it looked like before — we now have a pretty paved driveway instead of those three stone slabs and little stones.

I bought that cute bird feeder at the Country Living Fair, remember?

Our front door needs a paint job. What color would you paint it? I’m thinking about a barn red or maybe a dark blue. Or should I keep it white?

I already bought white stain for the porch railing, but I’ll have to wait until the spring to tackle that project. The porch is going to look so much nicer in white instead of the brown wood color.

I want the porch to feel like an extension of our home, so I decorated it like another room. I used mostly cottage decor I bought at yard sales and thrift stores. The Farmer’s Market sign is from HomeGoods.

All of these furniture and decor items are from yard sales and thrift stores, except for the Pier 1 rug.

While we were shooting the pictures, a praying mantis appeared and hung out with us for an hour. I read that they come visit you to remind you to be more still and mindful — definitely a nice reminder we can all use in these hectic times.

The shelf was a free find Don brought home, the coffee table was given to us and also works as a bench for extra seating, and the little red bench is a flea market find.

I bought those heavy rod iron panels in Los Angeles and moved them many times, until I finally unpacked them for this house. They add a nice touch to our porch.