Exterior Upgrades: Increasing the Curb Appeal of An Outdated 90’s Split-level

Our third house was a 1990s outdated split-level. It had great bones and lots of potential, but required a fair bit of elbow grease to increase the curb appeal. There wasn’t a lot of work that needed to be done on the outside of our third house, but I think the few changes we did made a huge difference for curb appeal. One of the first things I did was paint the front door and shutters using dark blue outdoor paint.

I think they used to be red, but they were very faded and were looking more pink.

At the back of the house there is a very large two-tiered deck. All that needed to be done to that was a new coat of stain.

Most of the outside work we did was around the pool area.  We replaced part of the chain link fence with a wood fence so there would be more privacy from the road. This is the fence from the road…

…and this is the fence from inside the pool area. We stained it the same color as the deck.

There used to be lawn inside the pool area, but we replaced all the grass with gardens. Now instead of Tony having to mow the grass, I have more gardens to weed. I think he got the better end of that decision.

Tony also fixed up the storage shed. He replaced the old shingles with tin and added soffit and fascia. I don’t have a before picture, but you can believe me that this looks so much better!

The biggest job back here was adding stamped concrete. I mentioned to Tony at one point that stamped concrete would look really nice, and I think that got his wheels turning. Everything we read said not to try this yourself because it’s quite difficult to get right. But that never stops Tony. He bought the concrete stamps online, and spent a lot of time researching how to do it (you can find just about anything on YouTube!) He got help from friends and family, and they finished pouring the concrete and stamping it within an afternoon. I think it looks amazing!

Another thing we wanted for our house was a hot tub. However, a new one was out of our price range, so we got this one off kijiji for $200. The price was so low because it wasn’t working.  But Tony was able to fix it and now it works perfectly! He also built a bench beside the hot tub and a handy gate right beside the kitchen patio door. This makes it very convenient to go in during the winter.

So I guess this post turned into a “brag about my husband” post. Tony did most of the work outside to increase the curb appeal, and he is very good at what he does. He’s not afraid to try to fix anything, and loves the challenge of learning new skills.