My girls often like to ask me what my favorite room is at Waffle Hill Farm. It’s not easy to answer. I love the kitchen, with it’s wall of windows looking over my clothesline, and old linoleum kitchen floor, old painted cabinets and creaky old stove. It’s a workhorse of a kitchen. Or our bedroom–breezy and bright. Or the living rooms–dark and cozy and overflowing with books.
It’s hard to choose, when you love a place.
But one of the favorites at the top of my list is the Waffle Hill porch. In the spring and summer, we slide open the windows to let in the breeze from the top of the hill. We escape the heat of the kitchen to enjoy our dinners with the coolness of the porch breeze and ceiling fans. During the school year, the younger girls and I sit around the big farm table to do school lessons. In the winter, the warm sun streaming through the windows makes it the perfect spot to sneak away for an afternoon nap in the sun. (Someone else in the family has discovered it’s good for napping too. Ahem. He has four paws and also prefers the sofa.)
The porch is where we gather for family dinners. It’s where I find the kids hiding out in the afternoons or just before bed–a quiet space to escape.
It’s our overflow for big family parties. The “kids table”. The “hors-devours and drinks are the on the porch” space.
It’s the place in my house where I can slip out with a book or magazine and it feels like maybe I’m actually on vacation.
You can ask my husband, but before we even moved into Waffle Hill last summer I was already telling Dan that I wanted to hang lights on the porch. I had it already pictured in my head. We temporarily strung up some Christmas lights when we took down the tree, but they looked sloppy and weren’t the look I wanted.
So I was so happy to re-discover Jasco’s Enbrighten Color Changing lights. You may remember that I have worked with them in the past, but gifted my lights to family friends that were so helpful in our move to Waffle Hill. But I knew that they were just the thing for the porch. And now, they had the fun element of being able to change to almost any color we could dream up. Kid minds blown.
We’re still slowly working on settling in on the porch. Still moving around furniture combinations and making changes. I don’t want to think about how many times Dan and I have carried a sofa out to the porch only to try some other combination and move it right back out.
But when the girls and I were away for the day a few weeks ago, we came home to discover that Dan had been doing some work on the porch. He moved furniture around, planted pots of herbs for me, and hung the lights!
Immediately there was a mad scramble for the remote control and it’s sea of buttons. I’ve talked about it before but the Jasco’s Enbrighten color changing lights are unbelievably durable. They can be used inside or out and withstand the weather and wind. The color changing lights have all kinds of fun options–with a rainbow of colors and lighting patterns, you can practically customize them for any season of the year.
You can choose a single color or customize your strands of lights with multiple colors. If the kids are in charge of the remote, all kinds of color is happening. And when it’s just me out there on the porch, I prefer the classic warm white. You can even control the brightness of the lights with the dimmable fade function. They have a built-in timer and are linkable up to 750 feet.
Little by little the space on the porch is coming together. And is definitely one of my favorite spaces.
For more ideas on using Jasco Enbrighten Color-Changing lights in your home, check out this Pinterest board.
Disclaimer: This post is part of a partnership with Enbrighten Color Changing Café Lights. All opinions in this post are my own.
I love you porch PERIOD! Now I need me a set of those lights!! That control!!
Is the table with the potted plants on it an old card catalog? I love your porch–so cozy!