Week 11: How to increase your house curb appeal

I had hoped to get some trim done at the house this week, but that didn’t work very well. First of all, I wasn’t able to spend a lot of time there, and the time I did spend doing trim I ended up wasting by cutting every piece of trim twice. Apparently I’ve forgotten how to install trim right the first time.

But in the mean time over the last several weeks I’ve been working on the exterior of the house. Making small changes to the outside of your house is a great way to make it look more inviting. Here are some easy changes you can do to increase your house curb appeal.

BEFORE

This is what our investment property looked like 11 weeks ago when we bought it. Nothing really wrong with it, but it just looked a bit sad and neglected.

CLEAN THE EXTERIOR OF YOUR HOUSE

Take a pressure washer to your whole house. Scrub the siding, get rid of spider webs, clean your windows, get rid of garbage and clutter, clean the driveway and patio stones. Cleaning the exterior makes a huge difference and shows that you care about your house. Plus, pressure washers are a lot of fun. The most satisfying part of cleaning this house was the patio stones at the front. They were green and grimey when we bought the house, and now they are back to grey.

PLANT FLOWER BEDS

There was a very small flower bed in front of the large window. I figured there were two options – fill it the flower bed with stones, or make it bigger. I chose to move the patio stones out a few feet and add a real garden. If you don’t have flower gardens around the front of your house, it’s a great idea to plant some. I find that gardens really make a house look like a home. They soften the line between the foundation and the lawn and add color and texture to the front of a house. I cut back the overgrown euonymus, and added low maintenance grasses and perennials. The grasses add some height, and the artemisia and blue fescue add some color and texture. It doesn’t look like much now, but in a few years it will fill in and look so much better.

PAINT THE FRONT DOOR AND SHUTTERS

Black is a great color, but I think blue is a much more friendly color. I had a can of paint leftover from when I painted the door and shutters from our last house, so this upgrade cost me nothing. I took the door and shutters home and use my paint sprayer to give them a fresh coat of paint.

UPGRADE EXTERIOR LIGHTING

We haven’t actually finished this, but we bought a new light fixture for the outside of the house. It is a little larger and a little more modern than the one that was there. You can get some great looking lights for a small amount of money, and it makes a huge difference to the house curb appeal

NEXT WEEK

This weekend we’re going to start installing kitchen cabinets! Tony has the base cabinets built. We’ll get those installed and then I can order the counter top. Also the kitchen cabinet doors we ordered came in and I’m so excited, it’s going to look so good! And I need to get a good start on the trim.