When we shared photos of our front porch last fall, we explained our decorating approach there: plants, and more plants. Filling the porch with greenery ties it visually to the surrounding landscape and, as you’ll see, helps hide some unattractive elements of the exterior — namely three large rectangular utility boxes. More on those in a bit.
To put things in perspective, here’s how the porch looked last February when we made an offer on the house (that’s our realtor in the photo).
We’ve come a long way since then — you can read more about the exterior changes we made here and here. That big dirt pile from the pool project has been leveled now, and we’ve shared pool progress on Instagram Stories as it’s happened.
Somehow when the house was built, the electrical meter ended up on the front of the house — just a few feet from the front door. That’s not typical; most homes have the meter on the side or back. So our utility box greeted visitors right from the street. Then, when we installed a whole-house generator last fall for hurricane preparedness, two more panel boxes were added beside the original meter. Suddenly we had three large metal boxes dominating the porch, and a single large fern no longer provided effective camouflage.
Our first step was to paint the boxes white to help them blend with the siding — a simple trick we’ve used before. We checked with the utility company and the inspector, and they approved painting the enclosures. After that we built a straightforward outdoor plant shelf to obscure the panels while increasing our plant display. The shelf holds four larger trailing plants, with a smaller plant placed on top of the far panel. They’ll need time to grow into full coverage, but even now the greenery draws the eye away from the boxes and makes the wall much more attractive.
We’ve had great success growing trailing plants like pothos outdoors here — even through the winter — so we’re optimistic these will thrive as well. If they do, they’ll effectively disguise the service boxes while adding a lush, welcoming layer to the porch. Sherry is excited to track their progress (and she’ll likely share updates on Instagram Stories). She’s also looking forward to a bigger lemon harvest from our ponderosa lemon trees this year.
The shelf itself is basic and functional. It consists of four main parts:
- Backplate (Green): A 1×8″ primed board screwed into the wood siding. We used this size to span the high points of two siding boards and create a flat mounting surface.
- Supports (Blue): 1×8″ boards cut at a 45º angle to form triangular supports beneath the shelf. These were assembled with glue and screws before attaching the backplate to the siding.
- Platform (Pink): Two 1×10″ primed boards sandwiched together with glue and finish nails to form a sturdy shelf surface, screwed into the supports and backplate from above.
- Face Trim (Purple): 1×2″ primed boards nailed along the edges of the platform to hide the stacked boards and give the shelf a finished look.
After assembly and filling the holes, we painted the shelf and boxes to match the house so everything blends together. The goal is subtlety: let the plants be the focal point while the hardware recedes.
Although the utility company cleared us to paint the clear meter cover (meter readings are remote now), we left that portion unpainted to be safe. You can still check our kilowatt usage if you want.
The shelf also improves access to the storage box beneath, where we keep beach chairs, umbrellas, bike helmets and more. Previously we kept a large fern on the storage box in a lightweight pot that had to be moved every time we opened it and sometimes blew over on windy days. The new fixed shelf eliminates that hassle and keeps the porch tidy.
If you’re looking for other simple outdoor projects, we have plenty of posts documenting our exterior updates, from a full exterior before-and-after to an outdoor daybed tutorial and a refreshed covered porch. We’ve focused on maximizing outdoor living since downsizing — spending more time outside in a warmer climate has been a real lifestyle upgrade for us.
We also plan to share a comprehensive update about our pool planning and progress in an upcoming post, so stay tuned for that.
More Plant Guides
If you want care information for some of our favorite plants, here are helpful guides we’ve published:
- Golden Pothos Care Guide
- Marble Queen Pothos Care Guide
- Neon Pothos Care Guide
- Monstera Deliciosa Care Guide
- Snake Plant Care Guide
- Fiddle Leaf Fig Care Tips
- Tree Philodendron Care Guide
- How to Build an Easy Plant Shelf
- Protecting Outdoor Plants in a Deep Freeze
- Getting Started with Houseplants — Expert Interview
- Favorite Faux Plants
- Easy Houseplants to Keep Alive
- 10 Houseplants for Better Indoor Air Quality
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