How I Lit My Front Porch for Long Asheville Evenings

We have a deep front porch. The reason we fell in love with this house before we'd even been inside. Wide boards, two rocking chairs, a view of the mountain ridge to the east. In summer, it's the best room in the house. Or it was, until dark. Without porch lighting, we retreated inside the moment the sun dropped, and the porch became a beautiful thing we owned but didn't use.

The fix was two outdoor wall sconces flanking the front door, both on dimmers. I chose a simple blackened steel finish with clear glass, something that would disappear against the dark board-and-batten siding during the day and feel like lanterns at night. With warm 2700K bulbs dimmed to about 40 percent, the porch glows the way a lit window looks from the street: inhabited, welcoming, soft.

The installation took one Saturday. I added an outdoor-rated outlet on the porch railing for a string of small Edison-style globe lights that run from the railing to a post. They stay off most nights but on the right evening they turn the porch into something out of a novel.

The difference in how we use the space is hard to overstate. We now eat dinner outside three or four evenings a week in good weather. Asheville summers are mild enough, and the evenings are long. With the sconces dimmed low and a citronella candle on the table, we stay out until ten, eleven sometimes. The porch finally earns what it promised the day we bought this house.