Our "Outdoor Living Room"--The Final Touches

We're anxiously awaiting the arrival of Spring in our house.  The turn of the season means plenty of yardwork (yay!) and time to enjoy our "Outdoor Living Room."

When we first bought our house, we really liked the front porch.  But I don't think we knew just quite HOW MUCH we would use it!  From March until October, we spend many evenings on the porch...we also spend quite a few weekend mornings drinking coffee, watching people walk to the Farmer's Market and reading the newspaper on our front porch.  It is literally our outdoor living room!

However, we have a few projects we want to tackle in order to make it a "complete" room!  But...we can't make a final decision so we're soliciting your input!

For starters, we need to put in some decent lighting.  I'm too embarassed to even show what we currently have as a light fixture!  It's a flood light screwed into a remnant of a ceiling-mount fixture that is covered in dead bugs...yuck!

We would prefer to hang an outdoor ceiling fan to help circulate the air during muggy months--but I'm not sure if that would look right???  Reason being, the wiring is smack-dab in the middle of the porch.  And our front door is slightly cocked to the left.  Thus, any light fixture will be about even with the right side of the door frame.

And for those of you who don't have our porch memorized yet *sarcasm*, this is what it looks like from various angles and during different seasons.

And this is the color of our fence (that's not in any of the pictures)...we want to make sure whatever we end up with coordinates with the house AND fence.

Anywho, as far as fans go--we're down to 2 options that we like.  What are your thoughts???

If a ceiling fan isn't a good fit, we'll just go with a hanging lantern. 

Here are just a FEW (hehehe) that I like...again, any thoughts/suggestions???  Do I need to go with a completely different style, maybe something more traditional?

 Aside from the lighting, we have just one more thing we want to change...the porch swing!  We love our current swing but unfortunately, it's falling a part and the paint is peeling.  I'd love to repair it, but you'd end up with a new porch swing if you tried it.  So with that, we are just going to replace it! 

This is the swing we have decided on.  Luckily, it comes unfinished so now we just have to make one last BIG decision....do we paint it white (like the one we have now)--or do we stain it to match the fence (and our dark wicker rocking chair set)???   Regardless of whatever color it ends up being, I can't wait to enjoy the ergonomic, rounded design on a beautiful Spring night ;-)