A SLICE OF LIFE

René planned this porch transformation around two of her favorite pieces—a former twin bed that she cleverly converted into a bench and a weathered door sporting a deep blue finish. She softened the seat with a plump cushion made from an old sugar sack stuffed with a foam insert and created a stars-and-stripes theme with a patterned coverlet and coordinating pillows.

Rather than filling the expansive outer wall with a lot of small accessories, René anchored the scene with a salvaged door whose blue hue pops against the lighter-colored siding. Not content to display a standard wreath, she embellished the door with a storebought wood watermelon cutout that she painted and stenciled herself and then adorned with faux flowers and patriotic ribbon.

To complement the welcome sign, René also crafted small watermelon slices from pieces of foam that she painted to resemble the sweet fruit. A tiered tray is the ideal receptacle for the crimson-colored slices as well as a potted plant and other Americana accents. Pennants sewed from fabric remnants ground the grouping.

The framed sign beside the door is another René original, which she created simply by printing out lyrics from “The Star-Spangled Banner” on a piece of paper (template on page 14) and then copying that onto a thin piece of fabric that she manually fed through a standard printer. (An off-white or linen-colored sheet of paper will work just as well in lieu of the fabric.)

To add a little whimsy to the festive motif, René completed the porch redo with a wood cow cutout propped up in a bed of ivy in a child’s toy cart.