The Buttered Porch Country charm, city heart
A covered porch in autumn looking out over a pumpkin field, with a red barn in the distance and a steaming mug of cider on the table.

Autumn on the porch

Pull up a chair.
The kettle's already on.

Mugs, towels, aprons and prints for a house that runs on butter and boundaries. Made for people who mean it when they say come on in.

See the sayings Why a porch

The Buttered Porch makes useful, character-rich goods for homes where people live honestly, welcome selectively, and use the good dishes.

The Shop

Sayings worth hanging up

Every one of these started as something I actually said out loud. The autumn batch is being made now, and this is the whole of it.

Not for sale yet. The Porch Letters go out first.

  • Mug Powered by Pie & Quiet
    11oz stoneware mug Coming soon
  • Art print Mind Your Own Porch
    Framed print, three sizes Coming soon
  • Kitchen towel Please Do Not Disturb the Butter
    Cotton flour-sack towel Coming soon
  • Kitchen towel Flour on the Counter, Peace in the House
    Cotton flour-sack towel Coming soon
  • Apron This House Runs on Butter & Boundaries
    Full-length canvas apron Coming soon
  • Art print Make Yourself at Home. Within Reason.
    Framed print, three sizes Coming soon
  • Candle We Saved You a Seat. Don't Make Us Regret It.
    Soy candle, spiced apple Coming soon
  • Apron Butter Your Bread & Mind Your Business
    Full-length canvas apron Coming soon
  • Mug Mind Your Biscuits.
    11oz stoneware mug Coming soon
  • Art print We Were Doing Fine Before the Algorithm
    Framed print, three sizes Coming soon
  • Tea towel Use the Good Dishes
    Cotton flour-sack towel Coming soon
The same porch at dusk, pumpkins on the step, a fire lit and a cat asleep in a chair.

My Story

A city girl, saving for a farmhouse

Chicago is the only place I ever wanted to live, and I got it: twenty years of the lake, the museums, the noise of it. One of the great pleasures of my life.

I'm leaving it for a farmhouse in Indiana.

Fifty did that. I want a kitchen that smells like something, pumpkins on a step that belongs to me and nobody else, and fireflies, which this city has never once managed to produce. Pumpkin spice is not a joke around here, it's a personality.

So every mug and every towel goes into the farmhouse fund. The Art Institute membership was the first thing to go. The porch is coming, and every saying here is a plank in it.

Come sit down. Bring nothing.

Porch Letters

First word when the shop opens

New sayings, new seasons, and word when the ambience videos go up. Sent now and then, never twice in a day.

The porch at sunset, strung with lights, the fire lit and the cat still asleep.

Ambience on YouTube

Coming this fall

Long, quiet hours of porch: rain on a tin roof, a fire settling, crickets, the occasional cat. No talking. Nothing to buy in it.