Outdoor updates and spring blooms

Spring. It really is my favorite season because there’s just so much promise ahead. Warm days. Sangria. Lazy porch time. This last Saturday our home was on the Wellesley Kitchen and Home Tour and it was so much fun. I got to meet so many friends, Instagram pals and hopefully inspire fresh, comfortable family design. I was losing my voice by the end of the day it was that good. For the tour I had the honor of having my sweet friend Suze Nock of Susan Nock Garden Design come and plant up the containers on my porch and new back entry. I learned so much just watching her talent at work. If you’re in the Boston area, she does container plantings and garden design coaching. We’re planning on having her back for our backyard landscaping when we recover from this remodel, haha!

Part of the remodel we did on this old home was scrape and repaint the exterior. The shutters were removed to be repainted in a shop and haven’t made their way up yet. If you’ve been following me on Instagram or here on the blog then you know my hubby and I definitely had opposing views of how this should go down. Painting your exterior is an expensive, time-intensive ordeal and we didn’t want to get it wrong. They worked for 3 weeks this April scraping, painting, rescraping, and repairing the eves. A few months back I posed a question to my friends on Instagram–do we stick with the same charcoal grey color or go a different direction? I wanted a white house with grey shutters and garage door. My hubby didn’t even want to think about changing the color. He loves it. Now it was almost comical how outnumbered I was in that vote. It was like 10 people agreed with me to 2000 agreeing with my hubs. I’m fairly confident if we had changed the paint color there would have been rioting. Haha! So friends. It’s the same exact color, Benjamin Moore Charcoal Slate. And it’s lovely. Maybe someday I’ll get a white house with grey shutters.

The porch decor has really stayed the same from our early spring porch update. Same rug, same table, same beautiful Homesense pillows. Suze did added some pretty flowers to my basket containers by the door and completely changed the flowers in the urns. The main change is the explosion of tulips all over the front yard and big props to my sweet hubs for getting the grass in tip top shape. In the fall we planted around 750 bulbs because I have a love affair with tulips. A couple different kinds of white. Some of the tulips have fringed petals, others are more slender. I do not remember the exact names of the bulbs but we usually get them wholesale from either Brecks or K. Van Bourgondien.  I plan on looking at Wicked Tulips for bulbs this coming fall because I love supporting local agriculture.

Now the layered rug look by the front door is going strong so I put together a few of my favorites from Target. You can shop my look at the bottom of this post but these would also be beautiful choices for your front door and could help inspire the florals and greenery you choose for your containers.

I make no claims to being a container planting expert but I did learn a few things watching Suze at work. She focused on adding height to the back of the container, a draping plant to the front or side and some beautiful filler plants. And she worked off a color palette. I’m obsessed with peachy colors so she found some beautiful plants and flowers sticking to that white, green, peach palette.

For the back entry and new mudroom dutch door (painted the same color as the front door, Benjamin Moore Catalina Blue), I bought two white ceramic pots from Crate and Barrel. They’re beautiful all planted up and play off the symmetry of the back door perfectly. I used the same two layered rug duo to bring cohesion to our exterior design. I hope you’ve enjoyed our spring tulips and outdoor exterior updates. This old home is that much closer to done and we couldn’t be more thrilled. The fresh exterior paint makes such a difference, even though hubby won the paint battle. Springtime is an absolute joy. I hope you’ll pop over and say hi to my friends below. So many inspiring outdoor spaces!