Oakly, a few questions.
Is your front door still brown? If it's still brown, I would refrain from painting the pots black, or at least totally black. They look nice right now with the brick. How much sun do you get in that location on the porch?
Do you walk along the porch from your front door to get to the place where the lawn chair is sitting? I'm talking about in front of the brick column or wall with the lamp? Is that a column or part of a wall?

I'm asking because if you don't need to walk between the two spaces, a very large pot with a vine and then a wire along the roof line would be just beautiful. Perhaps an evergreen clematis, or a climbing red rose...even yellow jessamine vine. However of course, you wouldn't want to block the ability to walk along the porch if you needed to get to the other side :) Along those lines, have you thought of using the pots for vines and buying or making skinny tellises for the side lights? If you get enough sun, miniature climbing roses would do lovely there. There are several trellises for containers that would work, including some that are half round. It would probably depend on how much light you really require in your side lights. If you require more light, perhaps you could put vines in pots beside the side lights. I think a cluster of pots with your pots would be just beautiful there.
I'm also seeing some cottage garden porches (on pinterest) with accoutremonts that could be beautiful all year such as a wooden column with a bird house painted white nestled amongst plants, pots on stands and some on the ground so they surround the bird house...wreaths on doors, "hay rack" type wall planters (or on longer plant stands) eg. under that pretty round window...and perhaps if you would like something "not living" on or around the side lights, you could fashion a "not wreath".
Meaning using grape vine make curvy "s" shapes and attach the usual wreath decorations to them, it's just you would have a unique shape to yours. They'd be very pretty with 'fairy lights' in them at night.

Yes, the door is still brown and now we have a storm door on it with one of those hidden screens. The storm door is kind of orb with a bit of purplish, but it all blends in.

Zero sunlight on the front door. Porch faces north and only the very front of the porch gets morning sun, which doesn't include the front door area.

I need something artificial there so it will look nice in the winter.

We do walk between the column and the wall. The reason I thought black would look good is because there's so much brown on the porch already, and there's black in the brick.

Trust me though, whatever I buy won't look cheesy, but it's got to be artificial.

I have a rubbed gold plantstand under the round window, and another like it on the other side of the porch that holds the fern.

Below is a picture of the right side of the porch. I'm not really worried about decorating the whole porch, just the sidelight area.

Love your seating area, would be such a nice place to sit and visit, enjoy the garden, and a cool drink on a hot day.

I think you are right that faux would work better on a north facing porch especially in the winter.

IMO if one uses faux plants they either should look really real or really faux. An example of 'really faux' would be gold painted florals. When I sold faux florals/plants in my store I only bought the expensive ones and they can be pricey but, of course, last a very long time and look much better than the cheaper ones.

One winter I used curly willow painted white with silver decorations on top of neutral reindeer moss covering the foam in the antiqued white urns. That's another example of really faux.

I think a nice cottage look would be many stems of white daisies but I think that would be best for spring and summer. Faux ferns might be nice summer or winter. I have some faux cedar that looks very real. Mixed coniferous stems such as pine, cedar, spruce, fir, etc. would look good. If you have an electrical plug-in you could add mini lights for an extra touch.

You could use some narrow trellises with faux vines climbing up and any flowers you like at the bottom.

Remember the suggestion re: containers and use "a thriller, some spillers, and some fillers" for a nice full look.

For cottagey embellishments you could add birdhouses, bird nests, faux birds, pieces of driftwood or tree branches or roots, or other rustic decorations in the urn. Check out "Save On Crafts" for ideas. One year I put my woven wire roosters in my planted containers. Sometimes I add my rustic angel on a pick to a big pot of flowers.

This post was edited by luckygal on Mon, Jul 15, 13 at 22:48

Your porch looks fantastic! I think because you have black furniture the plant planters would look super. I was sort of thinking of this idea: http://www.homedecorators.com/P/Diamond_Rose_with_Mini_Angel_Ivy/300/

You could probably easily make your own, in the size you want by visiting the Hobby Lobby or some other craft or large home decorating store that offers loads of floral options.

Save-on-Crafts and Home Decorators are two of my favorite stores to shop online at! I've gotten some great deals at HD for inside silk flowers. So I'm going to check them out later.

Whatever goes there can't move too much in the wind. During a Northerly in winter it can blow pretty hard.

I love the "really faux" idea! Never thought of it that way.