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I love porches! If designed and decorated correctly, a porch can say “welcome,” “sit a spell,” “glad you stopped by” or “come on in.” Perhaps one reason I’m so in love with porches is because I don’t have much of one of my own. . . maybe someday.

All of the pictures here offer some sort of inspiration for creating a porch that will hopefully say just the right thing to your guests and passers by, but today’s sparks are in a different format so just click the forward and backward arrows to be inspired. (If the graphic doesn’t load immediately, wait a minute and refresh your screen.)

Porches

Okay, so I’ve never used the word “prettification” in my life, but I like the alliteration and you can blame my thesaurus for that one. A little new vocabulary never hurt anyone.

With the Fourth of July just around the corner, I thought I would supply you with a few decorating ideas and appropriately patriotic homes in hopes you might get a few ideas for dressing up your own abode and proudly pronouncing you are an American. While some folks definitely go over the top, I think you can also be very subtle in your use of stars and stripes to set the proper stage.

So here’s to the red, white and blue and a wonderful weekend too.