Winter Front Porch Ideas

As winter rolls in, the effort you put into outdoor decorations starts to make a bigger impact. The loss of leaves from the trees and flowers from the yard turns the focus to the decorations around the house itself. The front porch is an ideal place to express your personality and show off your family’s creativity over the winter. Make it the centerpiece of the home’s outdoor décor with these tips for winter conditions in all parts of the country.

Don’t be afraid to add soft textures and fabrics to your front porch display, especially if it already features loungers, benches, or porch swings. Folding cable knit blankets send a cozy message to anyone who passes by, while faux fur throw pillows in icy colors hint at the spikiness of icicles while adding warmth. If your porch isn’t covered or protected from the elements, put these items away in between uses and bring them out for display when company is on the way. You may want lighter throws and blankets in warmer climates if temperatures are less likely to dip into frosty levels.

Think outside of the evergreen box when looking for holiday wreaths. Wreaths can be made from practically any material that can be shaped into a ring, giving you almost endless opportunities to show off your interests or family’s personality. Show off a love for the forest with a wreath of moss, ferns, and deer antlers. Or try brightly colored pom-poms, painted pinecones, or gift bows to bring a pop of color to the front door. It’s easy to collect an arrangement of different winter wreaths and change them out weekly for a quick update throughout the season. Lighted wreaths are the easiest to decorate if they feature LEDs that efficiently run on small battery packs you can easily hide.

Live trees and plants often struggle on the porch in winter because enclosed porches don’t feature enough light or water for them, while open porches leave them freezing. Artificial trees and greenery arrangements take a lot of the work out of keeping a winter porch looking fresh. Today’s artificial plants look a lot more realistic than they did years ago, giving you plenty of opportunities. Aside from faux pine or spruce trees, consider a cute lollipop or pyramid greenery for a formal garden look on the front porch.

The classic winter garland is made with long-needle pine, but you have many other options to get the look you want. Garlands with no greenery at all made from strings of popcorn, glass ornaments, or paper stars can look just as festive. As with artificial trees, you may want to invest in a high-quality artificial garland rather than sweeping up pine needles for the entire winter.

Front porches always need a little light, but long winter nights call for even more illumination than usual. Aside from the routine holiday lights, other popular decorating options include:

• Working or decorative lanterns, especially oversized ones that catch the eye as well as add light
• Net lights that cover an entire section of wall or the surrounding bushes in a soft collection of sparkles
• Projector and spotlights that display fun scenes or colorful displays across the front of your home.

Of course, plenty of homes are located in warmer areas, where there’s no heavy snowfall to help dress up the rest of the landscape. These front porches need a slightly different approach to decoration. Even if you want to go traditional with evergreen garlands and sparkling lights, consider working in some details that are relevant to the climate. For example, try succulents that tend to turn bright colors in cooler weather. Solar lights with colored lenses can light up the planted landscape with seasonal red and green. Bright red, in particular, is a useful color for outdoor winter decorating in areas where natural green colors persist in the landscape year-round.

Don’t be afraid to mix up your front porch display as November and December give way to the early months of the next year. Winter is a long season in many parts of the country, so a refresh halfway through the season can breathe life back into any outdoor décor.