Most home renovations focus on the inside. You replace dated carpet with new hardwood, tile the bath and shower, and replace old countertops with marble or granite, along with updating things like plumbing and electrical as needed. The exterior is often neglected in favor of making the interior more beautiful.

However, investing in your curb appeal is not only great for the value of your home but also to make your home look like home to all who visit. The updates are more than aesthetic. Upgrades to siding, windows, and exterior features also add to your home quality and save you from the maintenance that comes as worn-out products continue to age.

Here are some curb appeal improvement ideas that can take your exterior from blah to beautiful, even making your house look entirely different.

Add Dimension

One of the reasons why some homes fade into the background while other pop out is because of a lack of dimension. For example, simple ranch homes from the 1970s were often perfectly rectangular without any gables in the roof or any entryway or porch. These houses simply look like a blank slate, completely flat with a low-pitch roof.

If you have this type of home, you’ll want to add more visible interest. For example, if your roof is one straight line along the front of the house, you might add a peaked roof over one of the windows. If both windows are flat like the rest of the front, you could install a large bay window in the living room.

For more extensive renovations, you might even build an addition, breaking up the flat front by bringing a room forward by a foot or two.

If you can’t really change much about the physical exterior of your home, you can still add dimension by bringing texture to the party. For instance, you could remove some of your vinyl siding to add a rock exterior to the lower half of your home. With some new wooden shutters and a new front door, your home may not have the most captivating architecture, but it will still be more interesting.

Highlight the Entrance

Another way to approach improving curb appeal is to find a way to make an entrance more visible and pleasing. Some homes have a flat entrance or the entry is hidden by a large garage. Sometimes, the door doesn’t face the street but rather is turned to the side, making it hard to know where the focal point of the house should be.

If your house suffers from a mediocre entry way, consider:

  • Building out the entrance so that it pops away from the rest of the house. This approach works really well on ranch and split-level homes.
  • Landscaping the pathway to your door with lights and florals to create a visual line to the front door. For homes where the entrance is obscured by a garage that extends forward, this approach helps draw attention away from the garage with a colorful path.
  • Building a small entry porch. When you extend out your actual entry, you can create the illusion of an extension by putting a porch around the front door. If you already have a small porch, you might change the roofline to make it more interesting and wrap the beams in sleek, beautiful wood.
  • Adding brick and unique railings can also make a porch stand out.

Other ideas include adding windows around the front door to increase the appearance of its size, or if your house is large enough, you might even change a single door entrance to a double door entrance. If you have steps to the door, make them wider and increase the size of newel posts.

Update Colors

Updating colors can make a big difference, especially if you are hoping for a more straightforward project. If you have old white siding, you might go for a modern color like gray or even a sage green for your home. Avoid colors that might seem fun to you like bright green, turquoise, or hot pink. These can negatively affect your curb appeal.

If you have a historic home that’s been painfully painted peach, mint, or another popular color from decades past, research the original color and make plans to restore it. If you have a brick home, you might even try paying to restore the exposed brick color, removing layers of paint.

Part of updating colors means updating window trim and even shingle color. Contrast helps a home to have more curb appeal. If you’re going from all white, you might choose to add siding or paint the home grey, leaving the trim around windows and doors white. If you don’t have trim, consider adding it.

One the other hand, if you love the classic look of white, freshen the color by either cleaning or painting the exterior, and then add contrast with black, charcoal, or dark green trim. This look works well for Colonial and farmhouse style homes.

For more information about changing the exterior of your home, contact us at Four Seasons Home Products