Passing Time on the Porch- Even if you don’t have one!
24 Sep 2017
After falling out of vogue, the front porch is back in style
By Sara Bruskin The happy family reclining in rockers on the front porch may seem like a dated, Rockwellian image of the quaint home life—the kind that was presumed extinct for a while. Fortunately, we can’t attribute that demise to crumbling family values, because the front porch itself fell out of vogue in the 1950s and ’60s, when increasing traffic made street views less desirable, and air conditioning and television drew people indoors.
Peggy’s Porch
Rather than miss out on the neighborly space, Doyle came up with a creative solution by turning part of her front walkway into a sitting area. “I never really thought about using the area to the side of our driveway as a porch,” she says, “but grabbing an old beat-up Adirondack chair out of our neighbor’s trash gave me a start with a great chair, and I added on from there. The walk had plenty of room, so I bought a bench, too, since having just one chair is not very inviting.” After Doyle painted the chair a cheery blue and added a few potted plants for ambience, she had an alternative to her more closed-off backyard. “We have a back deck,” she notes, “but it’s a very small, private backyard. It’s nice, but the front area is just an additional sitting area. My husband and I like to have a place to sit out front as we get our bikes out of the garage and put on our shoes and helmets to get ready for a ride. All our neighbors are welcome to come and sit here, too, whether we’re there or not.” For others who miss their childhood porches, creating a makeshift one can be fairly simple: patio furniture, folding chairs, hammocks, umbrellas and other items can create a communal gathering area in front of a home. If lawn is your only option out front, set down a different surface to define the space—flagstones, gravel, bricks or even a pebble mosaic, if you’re extra ambitious. Doyle used indoor/outdoor area rugs in her porch space. Just be careful not to make your porch area too enviable. “My neighbor who had the chair in his trash pranked me and stole the Adirondack chair back and put it in front of his house. They can borrow it, but they can’t have it back!” Doyle jokes.
