By Lana Torre
Whether you are selling your current home, considering buying a new place, or just wish to give your abode a facelift, I have several ideas for you to boost your pride in your home.
Your home should rise up to greet you, transform it to be the best home on the street.
The first action should be to clean. Rid your yard of all debris, dead branches, leaves and ‘witches britches’ hanging from your shrubs. Purchase a power washer and spray your siding, shutters and gutters. Re-edge sidewalks, gardens, herb beds and then mulch. To keep weeds from growing up through the new mulch, lay down sheets of newspaper before spreading the new mulch. Rid your property of all seasonal stuff, like Christmas lights and wreaths. Replace with baskets of annual flowers and pots filled with herbs for cooking. Remember, you’re bringing in a new season.
Porches are back!
Whether attached to the front, side or back of your home, play up it’s detail. Plant climbing flowers like roses, clematis or morning glories and have them climb on lattice. If you don’t have lattice, tie strings from the ground to the porch ceiling so the plants can grow up and you will have created a living wall. Slipcover or buy new furniture cushions. I would re-think adding a row of white rockers, a la Cracker Barrel, but would consider adding a glider or hammock.
I remember our front porch, where I grew up, in the 19th ward. It was a sanctuary. A place for neighbors to gather and play cards. Our porch was the stage for fun games, long before the invention of Xbox. We played ‘red light, green light’ and ‘movie stars’ from our front steps. We waited for the “Skippy man” to drive down the street, listening for his bells, awaiting a purchase of a ‘Buried Treasure’.
It was a safe haven from big, scary dogs that roamed freely then. It was a place to storm watch and wait until puddles filled the streets so we could wade through them barefooted. It was the hangout to rest after we enjoyed a ‘street dance’ on a Friday night.
Way back in the late 1800’s porches were slated as healing places. “Cure porches’ around Saranac Lake were places where city dwellers could heal from tuberculosis. There are about 180 of them on the historic register.
Be proud of your home. Try a ‘bite sized’ project this weekend.
Clean the yard, plant and mulch. If you are fortunate to have a porch, make real lemonade and a lettuce sandwich. Relax on your glider, grab your deck of Bicycles, and spy on your neighbors- it’s the only acceptable place.