Top 10 Kerb Appeal Ideas – Improving Home Appearance

If you are searching for a new home or selling your current home, you may have come across the word kerb appeal. Kerb appeal was originally an American term that the UK has now latched onto. The definition of kerb appeal is the attractiveness of your home and its landscape when viewed from the street or roadside. Kerb appeal is therefore highly significant when selling your property as you want your house to be as appealing as possible. The outdoor image of your home is just as important as your interior décor, so it is essential that your home maintains it’s attractiveness inside out. In this article, we will take you through the top 10 kerb appeal ideas that you can implement to improve the appearance of your home.

Replace your external door and upgrade door furniture

You may think of your front door as a minor detail of your home, however, when viewing your property your external door is one of the first elements that people will notice. So, if your door is not clean or looks worn away this will give a poor first impression to visitors and potential buyers. Replacing your external door with a new and elegant alternative can work wonders for your home. This fresh update will transform the image of your house as it is a bold change. If you are not ready to replace your front door, another option to improve the look of your door is by upgrading your door furniture. Adding new furnishings like updating handles and knockers can have a great impact on the image of your exterior. This will leave a better impression on people visiting your property and will set the standards much higher before they enter your property.

Enhance your driveway

An untidy and poorly maintained driveway will have a negative effect on the image of your home, as it is the front of your property that sets expectations for the rest of your home. With paved, concrete and gravel-surfaced driveways you can give them a fresh new look with a pressure wash clean and by maintaining the surroundings of the drive. A deep clean will result in the illusion of your drive looking like a brand new surface. This gives you a much cheaper option than the high expense of updating the surface of your driveway and also saves you a lot of time as well. A clean and well maintained driveway will give off a fantastic impression and set the tone for the rest of your property.

Clean up your front entrance way

Along with your driveway, the front entrance way to your property sets the scene for the rest of your home. So, if your entrance walk is crowded with overgrowing plants or cracked paving it is time to change this. A clean and organised walkway to your door will result in a much better kerb appeal for your home. The added benefit of this idea is that it can be sorted with little to no cost. As you can tidy up your entrance way by cutting back plants and weeding or cleaning your paving. This low-cost renovation will enhance your home without you having a large expense in your pocket.  A deep clean along your front walkway will result in an excellent first impression on visitors to your property.

Introduce external lighting

Many homeowners have been introducing external lighting to their homes in recent years, to add character to their properties. You may think that adding lighting fixtures will be an expensive update to make to your home. However, there are now many options available on the market at accessible and affordable prices. Solar light fixtures are amongst the favourites of homeowners as they are at a lower price end and are fairly easy to install. This will brighten up your property at night while looking decorative in the day to add more style to your home. Not only will this bring the superb appearance benefits, but it will also heighten your security making your house feel safer. For those already with outdoor lighting, we recommend checking your lights regularly to ensure they are working in order and are adding the right light to your home.

Clean and maintain your windows

Another low-cost kerb appeal idea that will improve the appearance of your home is cleaning and maintaining your windows. Whether you have a local window cleaner, or you clean your windows yourself, having freshly cleaned windows has a great effect on the image of your property. For those with larger budgets, you can look into repainting your windows or maintaining the frames of your windows. This will be much cheaper than replacing your windows, however, it can still give your windows a brand new look. Your property in result will look much more enticing and inviting, to increase your kerb appeal.

Maintaining your front garden

The appearance of your front garden plays a big part in the kerb appeal of your home.  When buyers are looking for a new home, they will recognise a well maintained exterior as meaning a well-kept interior. So, your garden can speak numbers on the first impressions and thoughts of your property. With a small effort, you can make your garden look great by just trimming any overgrown bushes or trees or by ensuring that your lawn is regularly mowed. Along with improving the appearance of your home, this will potentially increase the value of your house. A beautiful garden will be much more attractive to buyers, so by enhancing your landscape, you could add up to 10 per cent to the value of your property.

Plants are power – Add greenery to your garden

As well as maintaining your front garden adding greenery and plants to your garden can increase your kerb appeal to another level. Your front garden should complement your property while also respecting your neighbours and surrounding properties. Adding colour to your home exterior with plants will bring brightness and elegance, resulting in a more inviting home appearance. This can be done on any budget, with many options available from hanging baskets and potted flowers to artificial plants for those who want less to maintain. You can be as ambitious as you like with this depending on the value you want to bring to your home and how much effort you are willing to put in. However, just adding elements of greenery will help to make your home more attractive and give you more kerb appeal.

Maintain gates and fences

As mentioned in previous ideas, potential buyers want to see a well maintained exterior when they are looking at homes to buy. If your exterior looks untidy, they are more than likely going to be put off, meaning that this will have a negative impact on the kerb appeal and value of your property. It is essential that you take the time to maintain gates and fences on your exterior. Mending or replacing broken fencing and repainting gates will be quite time consuming, however, this will be very rewarding as it will lead to increasing the attractiveness of your property. Spending a weekend to fix these faults will help to boost the value of your house. So, get gritty today to enhance the kerb appeal of your home.

Making space for storage

Little things like having clutter on display or not having your bins out of sight can affect the value of your house, so you should look to avoid this if you are looking to increase your kerb appeal. You can tackle this by purchasing a garden store so you can keep your bins out of the picture while also providing storage for gardening products and equipment. This is a small change that could make a good impact on the appeal of your home. So, look to match attractiveness and practical purposes together now to improve the appearance of your property.

Update your guttering

Guttering is better known for its defence against the weather, although it also has an impact on the aesthetics of our homes. Your guttering can begin to age with time and become blocked or cracked. Updating the guttering of your property can increase the attractiveness of your home and is an effective way to advance your kerb appeal. You have many options with this as you can hire a professional to do this at a greater expense or look to fit it yourself using a PVCu setup for a much cheaper and straightforward job. Look into upgrading your guttering today to see how this could improve the appearance of your property.

Try our top 10 kerb appeal ideas today to improve the appearance of your home. Whether you make minor changes like maintaining gates and fences or changing the landscape of your garden or replacing your external door, it is time to increase the value of your property.