Before and after: Welcoming front porch

Hello, everyone, and happy Monday once again! I hope you all had great weekends.

Since we're finally seeing the sun here in Maine, I decided to spruce up our front porch. This is the entryway that our guests use, and we use it sometimes too. When we first moved in, we decorated it for Halloween with some fake spiderwebs and a couple pumpkins, but after Halloween it stayed empty.

The borrr-ing before...

And now!

Now, for the breakdown...

It started with a welcome mat, from Wal-Mart, of all places.

The next thing I added was the fuchsia plant from a local greenhouse. They're pretty, fragrant, bloom in the shade and attract hummingbirds. Plus, the purple color coordinates with the rest of our violet-hued flowers.

To hang it from the ceiling, we bought a screw-in hook and a chain, and the hubs installed it in about five minutes. The sheeting of the roof is plastic, but there's wood underneath, so the hook is screwed securely into the wood.

The two lanterns came next -- an impulse buy at Lowe's, and only $5 each! They also came in silver. The only downside is that they can only hold a tealight.

To add a little summer splash, I bought a grapevine wreath at Joann's (with a 40% coupon!) and simply hot-glued a few shells from my collection, then used some jute fabric to tie a bow. I can easily pull the shells off and reuse the wreath for other seasons.

After that, I was stumped. The porch needed more, but I couldn't justify spending lots of money on anything new, since we've got bigger projects to focus our funds on. But I knew I could afford a couple more plants -- and who doesn't love buying plants, right? So I bought a pink impatiens and a pink begonia, and a couple brown clay pots from Home Depot.

This poor impatiens was a little roughed up, but it'll bounce back for sure

To make them a little more snazzy, I decided to put our house number on them. Like a good DIYer, I pulled out some crafty things and got to work. I grabbed a couple more shells (seriously, I have a never-ending supply of shells!) and some number stickers I bought for another project. Then, I hot-glued the shells to some jute.

Cute, right? I'm totally loving it!

The shells wanted to lay flat, making it hard to read the numbers, so I actually hot-glued them to the pot to make them stick out like so:

What's holding my new pretties? This stand that was in the dining room.

It was looking a little neglected here, and since I think it actually is a plant stand made for the outdoors, out it went!

On the other side of the door, I put one of our new patio chairs with a light, summery blanket from the L.L.Bean outlet store I bought last year, aptly named the picnic blanket. I added a cute little pillow my college roommate made for me that has both purple and blue hues to tie in the flowers and the blanket. This lantern is from Pottery Barn.

Won't you stop by, have a seat and relax for a little while?

And don't be shy, even if it's dark out -- the lanterns will light your way.

I still think it needs more -- maybe a cute sign or some other wall decor. What do you think? I'm nervous to hang anything on our vinyl siding, so I may have to ponder that for a while.

Next year, we have plans to paint the whole thing white and add some latticing on either side of the stairs, to keep leaves and critters out. Everything is always a work in progress, isn't it?

I'll be linking up to Sarah at Thrifty Decor Chick's Before and After party when it goes up later today -- stop by!

Also linking up to Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch!

And the Project Parade at The DIY Showoff!

Also linking up to: