The way your home looks on the outside will often give people an impression of what it looks like on the inside. If making a good impression is important for you, then you should want to showcase who you are and dazzle your neighbors with your unique and quirky style, right? It all starts with the exterior of your home.
You want to walk down your street feeling proud of your house. It’s why you pay for gutter services and get your roof inspected by a roofing contractor every year. You don’t want your home being the one with shingles broken or a gutter that’s frozen solid. Those first impressions aren’t the only consideration, either. You should want to showcase who you are, dazzling people with your stunning style and if you decide you want to sell the house, you want it to sell for the best possible price. As we said, it all starts with the exterior of your home.
In this article, we’re going to give you some simple solutions for upgrading your home exterior – and without breaking the bank.
- Revamp the front door. You can either go with a paint job or stain the wood, but the simplest way that you can give your home a dramatic upgrade is with a front door makeover. You can use basic tools (and some help!) to remove the front door from the hinges and then paint or stain it outside. If you have a porch, do it there so that any inclement weather won’t affect it. Sand the door down and then either paint or stain it to suit your style. For an extra touch, you can even switch out the hinges themselves. Going from a brass hinge to black matte or even silver chrome immediately makes the door stand out.
- Upgrade your landscaping. You don’t have to be a master gardener for this one. If you don’t want to be, you can call a professional in to help. Transforming around your front porch, your walkway, your mailbox, or even the entire front yard with greens and vibrant flowers can be done in a weekend. You can plant succulents and trees, shrubberies or even wildflowers, and you can plant almost anything when you buy it from the store. Buying and installing fully grown plants can make your garden stand out, and it’s going to make the front of your home look so much brighter and more alive.
- Don’t forget some plant containers. If landscaping is going to take up far too much money and bypass your budget then why not get some planters outside? Pre potted plants around your front porch helps to elevate your home. Just make sure that you get some heavy ones so that they can’t get stolen. Container plants are fairly inexpensive, so shop around for the actual pots themselves. You’ll find some amazing finds in second hand shops or in DIY stores or even those little Knick knack shops that you can buy lots of things from. They’re low maintenance too, which means you can reuse them for future planting when the flowers perish.
- Change out your doormat. One of the most inexpensive upgrades that is super simple for the front of your home is upgrading your doormat. It’s not expensive at all, and you can either go with something fun with a quirky quote, or you can go with something large and easy for people to wipe their feet on. There’s every chance you’ve had the same exterior mat for years that’s stained with mud, grass and who knows what, so you need to look at upgrading it so that you have a better experience when people walk through your home.
- Add a wreath. Wreaths are not just seasonal. You know you can make them seasonal by having 4 wreaths that you use on rotation depending on the season. But a new wreath to your front door is a great way to add to the home’s exterior without taking up too much time or money. You can buy different ones from the store or you can make it yourself. You could have one that is themed with spring flowers, one that is themed with summer, one that is themed with Halloween, and then one that is themed with Christmas.
- Upgrade your light fixtures. If you’re looking for a good way to save some money while you are elevating your home, top out all your light fixtures and light bulbs to LED. Once you’ve repainted and stained your front door, there’s a chance that your fixtures won’t match your hinges or your door handles anymore. If you upgrade your lighting fixtures and they’re decades old, or you’ve moved into a new house and the details are outdated, replacing the hardware and the lighting itself is relatively simple. You just need a few tools and a couple of hours of spare time.
- Install a seating area. You don’t need to have a full table and chairs out the front, although you can if you want to. A bench is a great way to add something new to your porch. People can sit there to take their shoes off, you can have somewhere to sit and just relax and enjoy the day, or you can sit somewhere to supervise the kids while they play outside. A front porch or a front yard that has somewhere to sit makes for a more welcoming environment. People will want to stop as they walk past and sit with you; it makes for a friendlier neighborhood for sure.
- Give the driveways and sidewalks a pressure wash. It may seem like a huge chore, but it is a fun way to elevate the exterior of your home. You can wash away all of the dirt and ground for years and brighten your walkway in an instant. You can rent a pressure washer relatively cheaply from a local hardware store if you don’t own one, but it’s definitely worth the investment if you do want to buy one.