At first glance the curb appeal of our home was not bad, just blahhhhh.  There was definitely room for improvement.

The things that stayed

1. The cedar hedge which offered oodles of privacy.

2. The boxwood hedge that lined the driveway, added greenery and softened the concrete edges.

3. The front flowerbed that followed the curve of the road and again softened the edges.

The things we changed…well now the list gets much longer.

1. We replaced the vinyl siding on a natural focal point of the house with cedar shingles. This added color and texture to the front of the house. To carry the cedar over we did a cedar trim over the door and encased an existing post with cedar boards.

2. We also replaced the vinyl siding on the lower half of the house with stone adding again texture and color.

3. On top of this, we decked out the garage door with a new paint color and replaced the upper panels with windows.

One of the big challenges with the front of this house was drawing the eye to the front door which was set off to the side and under cover.

I made several changes to help bring the eye naturally to the front door.

1. I painted the front door blue so it would visually stand out, but yet coordinate with the stone on the house.

2. I took out a couple of boxwood’s in front of the door and added a flagstone path through the garden area and front lawn to lead foot traffic and the eye directly to the door.

3. The brass hardware and light fixtures were replaced with black. I added a hand forged wrought iron door knocker and a black kick plate. The brass mailbox and an old doorbell were painted black.

4. An old weathered wood and iron garden bench was placed by the front door with a couple of throw pillows to accent the door color. I also added a blue mosaic tile planter.

Extremely happy with the end result and my husband would say “I better be”as we did invest a bit of money in the curb appeal of our home.