A glass-topped vintage table on the back porch is styled for summer with a wooden plate rack, blue floral dishes, antique glassware, and potted ivy plants. 

The table has very few changes from one season to the next, but a good spring cleaning and a little rearranging makes every thing fresh again. 

Take a closer look at the vintage table on the back porch for ideas how to use a small table in your outdoor summer spaces. 

How to Get Your Porch and Deck Ready for Summer

Six tips will help you get your porch or deck ready to enjoy all summer long. 

Cecilia of My Thrift Store Addiction invited me to share what has been going on at my house this spring as part of a Spring Nesting Mini Blog Hop. Spring nesting is still taking place at my home this year, maybe even more so since we are sheltering-in-place. 

Spring Nesting Mini Blog Hop

A special welcome to readers coming from Kathleen at Our Hopeful Home. If you have not read her Copycat Lemon and Eucalyptus Candle, be sure you hop over for a great idea to give your home fresh scents for spring. Our Hopeful Home is a relatively new blog to me, but Kathleen grabbed my attention with her recent living room refresh done in French Farmhouse Style! 


You will find the entire list of nine creative spring posts with links at the end. 

Spring Porch Window Box Basket

Window boxes are not just for windows. This spring we moved a basket window box from the front entry to a railing on the back porch. 

Reasons for moving the window box basket include a better location to see the plants. The window basket was in the small front entry garden visible to all who came and went by the front door, but was too far away for a good view of the plants. 

After thinking about the possible move, other reasons convinced us the move was a good idea.

Rustic Blue Box Paint Refresh

A rustic blue trunk on my back porch needed repainting with an exterior paint to protect it from further damage from the weather. New paint refreshed the looks of the box we use as a coffee table / serving table. 

The new paint color is a little lighter than the previous paint, and I may add a darker coat of blue to the box later. The most important thing is getting the box painted with an exterior paint before Fall and Winter rains set in. 

Readers who receive my posts as an email should click on the title of the post in the email to continue reading the entire article. 

Create An Inviting Summer Porch

{This post may contain ads. If so, ads will be clearly marked that I may receive compensation.}

Summer is a time for living a little slower pace with family, friends, and neighbors. What better place to enjoy easy-living summer days  and nights than on an inviting porch. 

Thanks to Amber at Follow the Yellow Brick Home, you can see a collection of ideas from 20 bloggers at Spring into Summer! | Porches, Patios, and Outdoor Spaces Blog Hop for how each of us created outdoor spaces to enjoy this summer.  

If you are coming from Carol at Art and Sand, aren't her house and garden inspiring for summer ideas? I always feel happy when looking at Carol's blog anytime of the year. 

At the end of the post you can find links to see all of the ways 20 outdoor spaces from coast to coast are ready for summer. Wherever you live or whatever your style, you are sure to find some ideas for your summer outdoor spaces. 

Welcome to my summer porch.

Summer Porch ... brings to mind a place to relax, to share a meal, and to solve the world's problems with good friends or with your children out of school for summer vacation. See nine (9) ways I created an inviting summer porch for those long, lazy summer days to come. 

French Lavender in Winter

Short & Sweet 

joie de vivre

French lavender blooming in winter is not expected in north Texas, and was a pleasant surprise that brought a little French joie de vivre (exuberant enjoyment of life) throughout January and midway through February. 

I am not sure exactly when the French lavender plant in a pot on the back porch started blooming this winter. I was quite ill and did not go outside over Christmas and several days into January. 

Christmas Potting Bench

A potting bench just steps away on a back porch is a great place to work on Christmas greenery and to keep potted plants fresh during the holidays. And a potting bench is a place to keep your spirit alive as you work to create holiday magic in your home. 

Live plants flourish in cool temperatures and high humidity. After buying seasonal potted plants like rosemary trees, keep them outside until you want to use them inside as part of your decorations for Christmas celebrations. 

If temperatures dip down to freezing, bring plants inside overnight, and return them to the potting bench the next morning when temperatures rise above freezing. 

Christmas Porch Natural Greenery

Use natural greenery from your yard, the roadside, or a garden center to create beautiful free Christmas porch decorations. 

The Christmas season is upon us now that December has arrived!  And, Christmas decorations have begun at my house starting with both the front and back porches. 

Late Summer Patriotic Porch Ideas

The beginning of August is not really late summer, but now is the time to think about your late summer patriotic porch ideas. 

Labor Day is a perfect time to decorate with patriotic items. By getting your ideas together now, you can decorate before Labor Day so you can enjoy the way your porch looks for several days, not just for the three-day weekend. 

PIN ⤴ to your patriotic board so you can find these ideas again. 

Ready to see ideas of how to give your porch a patriotic look? 

Winter Porch Another View

Another View of the Winter Porch 

with a request for input from my readers. 

Click on the white ARROW to begin the slide show. 

Then click on the box in the lower right corner to enlarge the photos to fill your entire screen. 

The previous post on Botanic Bleu was Winter Porch Plants with standard photos and text. The above video/slideshow is another view of the Winter Porch in a different format. 

Recent articles in the virtual world indicate videos are preferred over the written word by most people viewing information on the Internet. 

1]  Is the video/slide show above appearing on your computer, mobile device, notebook, etc...? Are there any glitches? 

2]  Did this post load at its normal speed or did this post load slower than usual? 

3]  Which do you prefer? The original Winter Porch Plants post or the video/slideshow version with music? 

4]  Would you like a blog post with the video/slideshow at the top followed by several paragraphs of text? 

5]  Or would you prefer the video/slideshow with just ONE short paragraph? 

6]  Why do you like the version you chose? 

7]  Any tips or suggestions?  

I will continue to experiment with different versions of slide shows and videos this year, but most posts will be in standard format with still photos and text. I will be looking for a better way to show  slides and/or video. 

Thank you for giving your feedback in the comments below. 

* * * * * * * 

A quick update on real-time life and why there have not been any new posts for a couple of weeks...  I had a good visit with my brother out-of-state followed by a trip to California with my sister, the professional florist. She had a floral job for 40+ centerpieces at a dinner in the San Diego Hilton Hotel, and I went along to help (a little.) Of course, since we were in California we had to take a few days vacation before heading back home. We missed almost all of the frigid temperatures at home while in San Diego where we had balmy 70°-80° days. 

My sister and I will be traveling to spend time with our brother in the days to come. Future blog posts may be irregular. Right now I am trying to get caught up on everything here at home. There is the small matter of a broken water pipe from the freezing temperatures, but fortunately the pipe is outside the house between the house and garden shed. The cut-off water valve works as designed and allows us to have water in the house. No pressure to get the outside pipe to the garden shed repaired means it may be a few weeks before I tackle that. Then there are the mountains of laundry and usual household bills that need attention now.  

Thank you for reading. Keep cozy and warm as we dream of spring. 

Winter Porch Plants

B r r r r ...  1 3 ° 

the low on the porch this winter ...  so far 

Even in winter, there are several plants to enjoy on a porch.  

In north central Texas, winter weather is usually mild enough to enjoy porch living for many of the days during winter. Part of enjoying the porch is having evergreen plants, and an added bonus is having blooming flowers. 

Porch Plate Rack

P L A T E   R A C K S  

Modest Pieces of Furniture With a Big Impact 

Plate racks have been popular features in country kitchens for generations. Prior to the modern kitchen design (in the United States) in the mid-20th century, kitchens had little storage, mostly in the form of open shelves and open plate racks. Shelves and plate racks fit in small spaces and made plates easy to reach when needed. 

Currently there is an upsurge of returning to open shelves and plate racks in American kitchens. Magazines, blogs, and Pinterest boards showcase beautiful new kitchens, from tiny houses to luxury designs, with open shelves and plate racks. Do-it-yourself bloggers, house flippers, and fixer-uppers offer directions for installing shelves and custom-designed plate racks, including one floor-to-ceiling design with a hand painted recipe on the wall behind the plate rack. 

Internet links at the end take you to some of my favorites. If you love dreaming of a new kitchen or updating your old one, you are sure to find some inspiration. 

Create a Potting Bench in Coastal Colors

STEP BY STEP GUIDE 

Is functional design all you need to be happy with a potting bench? 

For me, I want a little something special, a little extra ZING, not just function, in any design. We needed a potting bench on our porch, and to give the potting area a little pizzazz, I decided to create a potting area filled with coastal colors. 

French Design on Friday 14

~ G A R D E N ~ 

Window Boxes 

How do we know what French design is? For those of us who love French design, how do we decide how to create our flower gardens to replicate French style? Traveling to France to see gardens first hand is the best way, but what if travel is not an option? 

And for those fortunate to travel to France, once we get home, how do we remember what we saw? Or, how do we discover what we overlooked while traveling? 

P H O T O G R A P H S 

Photographs taken in France help us recognize French design and allow us to study the French style repeatedly. Occasionally, the camera captures something our mind's eye overlooked at the time, but is revealed in a photograph. Each Friday, Botanic Bleu shares photos taken in France and then, shares photos of ways to incorporate similar French designs into our own homes and gardens. 

Sarlat, France

5 Joys of Spring Porch Living

Spring is a time for enjoying the great outdoors and no better place than on a covered porch... especially in Texas. In the good ole summertime, Texas will be sizzling, but the months of March and April are perfect months for 

5 joys of Spring porch living 

① Lazing on a chaise lounge 

There is nothing more relaxing than stretching out on a cushioned chaise lounge surrounded by fresh green Spring leaves under blue skies. Temperatures in the 70s and low 80s invite soaking in all of Mother Nature's new greenery. Letting your mind wander as you breath in the fresh Spring air rejuvenates body, soul, spirit, and 

c r e a t i v i t y. 

Or, a soft chaise lounge is a perfect spot for an outdoor nap to re-energize. 

Snowflakes on the Porch

Snowflakes on the Porch

Following Christmas, winter days are calmer with time for relaxing and enjoying the season without the frenzy that often accompanies Christmas. Falling snowflakes bring even a greater sense of peaceful days with the excitement that time stands still, even stops. No school, canceled meetings, changed schedules, sweat pants and hoodies, slow-cooking soups, and movie marathons. 

All without guilt. 

GREAT Pumpkin For Fall Porch

What makes a pumpkin a GREAT Pumpkin? 

Charlie Brown knows the answer, but he's still waiting out in the pumpkin patch for his great pumpkin. For the rest of us, there are G R E A T pumpkins to be had now, with no waiting. Here's what makes a great pumpkin for our  decks, our patios, our porches.