Kerb Appeal: What is it, and how do you get it?

Home might be where the heart is, but even the ideal home can get too small as your family grows. When it comes to selling your home, there are countless guides, tips, and tricks available that can improve your chances of making a quick sale, but not enough emphasis is placed on kerb appeal. First impressions are vital, and property buyers will usually make a snap decision on a new home from the moment that they first lay eyes on it. If you want to make a faster house sale, or even add a little extra to your asking price, then making sure that your home looks as amazing as possible from the first glance to the last is essential. Here are the best ways to improve your kerb appeal.

Pathway Perks

Kerb appeal is all about making your home look more inviting and aesthetically pleasing, so having a striking pathway to your front door is a great first step. You aren’t going to lack options either, because there are a wide variety of materials to choose from for your updated pathway. How your pathway redesign looks will depend on the design of your home, so always choose a style that matches. If you have a more period looking property, then original antique tiles are an excellent style to adopt. If you want something a little more modern, then a stylish geometric design can be very complimentary. If you’re not sure about paying out for a complete pathway overhaul, then simply making sure that your path is clean, tidy, and trimmed will go a long way to giving your kerb appeal an easy and natural boost.

Get Painting

Your front-facing exterior walls are a huge part of the appearance of your home, so they need to look good. Traditionally, your exterior walls should be a lighter, more natural colour, with either a noticeably darker or brighter colour choice for door and window frames. Of course, you can reverse that so that it goes the other way and that can be just as effective. Giving your exterior walls the once-over not only changes the overall appearance of your home, but it can also make it look a lot more stylish at the same time. If you want to wow potential buyers, you could even choose to go with dramatic differences between the wall colour and the window/door frame colours, with dark blues working well with brilliant whites to create a daring yet chic finish.

The Wonder of Windows

If the walls are the biggest area to transform, the windows are the most impactful. The right windows can be one of the most significant selling points of a property, and having the perfect windows in place can even increase the overall value of your property. Windows can be transformed in many ways, but if you want to really go for maximum kerb appeal, then having new windows installed is a must. It’s not just for kerb appeal either. Having some bay window replacements can dramatically enhance both the inside and outside of your home, and you can easily find window bay ideas for maximum impact. Never underestimate the importance of windows and natural light when it comes to making home improvements, and for an improved inside and outside, nothing is more important than your window choices.

Get Greener

Adding some natural elements to your entrance is a simple and cost-effective way of making your family home look much more inviting. Plants and shrubberies are excellent additions to your frontage, and even if you have a small garden (or no garden at all), you can use potted plants in the area around the door as a smart alternative. You might also want to consider window boxes or hanging baskets, although not everyone likes the look of these so it will depend on your personal preferences. Alternatively, consider some climbing plants that can add some real class to the appearance of a home.

The Small Garden

If you have a front garden, then you have plenty of options for boosting your kerb appeal. You don’t even need vast acres of grass to have a more stylish garden. Some of the best current trends for those smaller garden spaces include:

• Iron fencing: Wooden fences block out sunlight, but open iron fences look classy and don’t block the view.
• Natural life: Encouraging local wildlife into your front garden brings both life and energy into your living space. Plant the flowers that will attract bees, and set up some bird feeders too. Chat to the experts at your local gardening store and your front garden could be filled with colour and life before you know it.
• Arches: If you want visitors to feel like they have really arrived, then a garden arch at your front gate can be very stunning. An arched pergola can be threaded with climbing plants if you want to add to the drama!

Create Symmetry

If you want to add a touch of grandeur to your property, then you can’t go wrong with a little additional symmetry. What you use to achieve that symmetry is up to you and your budget, but you might want to consider:

• Matching lights on either side of the door.
• Plants that frame the door or lead up the pathway.
• If you have a larger garden, then symmetrical flower beds can look stunning.

By focusing on creating a more symmetrical appearance to your front-facing exterior, you can create a very real impact that will both surprise and delight visitors.

Go Brighter

While you can use exterior lighting as a way of increasing the feel of symmetry, it can be used for a lot more than just that. Lighting the outside of your home makes it automatically look more interesting, especially at night when the warm glow can transform the overall aesthetic. Choose lighting options that look decorative during the daytime too, and make sure that you choose a style that complements your existing architecture. You could choose from intricate and traditional fittings, or go more modern with some solar powered and contemporary options. If you really want to go all out on lighting, then use a small spotlight to illuminate your house number. Not only does this make it easier for visitors to find you in the evening, it just adds that perfect finishing touch.

The Front Door

This is, of course, one of the most important areas to look at. Your front door is your portal from the outside to the inside, and there’s plenty that you can do to make it have more of an impact. You might simply want to replace your existing front door with a brand new one, but make sure that it matches the rest of your property. Having a front door that clashes with your overall aesthetic is rarely going to be a positive change. When you’re choosing a new front door, make sure that you pick the right material:

• Fibreglass: This is a practical option, and fibreglass doors are very durable. The only flaw with them is that they are vulnerable to cracks if they get hit by anything.
• Steel: Great for security purposes and their insulation benefits, steel doors can be a bold statement. Remember though; they are not as resistant to extremes of weather as other material types, so factor in your location if you’re interested in steel options.
• Wood: Really, this is the choice to go for if you’re looking for that high-end look. They might be more expensive than other door types, but they are easier to look after and are amazingly durable too.

If you decide to work with the front door that’s already in place, then you still have plenty of options to consider.

• Paint: It’s sometimes startling just how different your home can look just by giving your front door a fresh coat of paint. You could choose to stick with the original colour and just make it look fresher, or go for a total colour change. According to Dulux, the most popular door colour in the UK is white, but they also highlight the popularity of Oxford Blue and Cranberry Crunch.
• Hardware: You might be surprised by how transformative the right hardware can be when it comes to your front door. Obviously, you need to pick the material and style that matches the door itself as well as the rest of your property, but there is no end of options to choose from. Your letterbox, handles, and door hinges can all be exchanged for new versions, and whether you go for traditional brass, wood, or something more high-tech, they will all give a different finish to your overall property appearance.

As with all of your kerb appeal changes, make sure that the door upgrades that you make result in a matching appearance. Head to antique shops for more unusual offerings, or go all out and have some door accessories custom-designed and built for you. Don’t overlook your door numbers either, which can be a quick and easy front door change that might change the look of your frontage more than you think.

Take a long, hard look at the front of your home. If you’re hoping to sell, then you need to identify any potential problem areas before you list your property. Clear the clutter and trim the grass, then focus on improving every element of your exterior. Improve your kerb appeal, and you could be selling your home much faster than you think, and you might even sell it for more than you expected.