Our first two curb appeal tips of the week were to clean your home’s exterior and then to trim back bushes and trees. Now it’s time to survey your home again. Does it feel like something is missing? Could you add a little something more to your home? One easy way to add color and variety of your home is by painting trim on doors or windows, or even adding some functional or decorative shutters. All of these things add dimension to your home, an important element of curb appeal.
Check out our before and after photos below. In the before image, the home has no trim colors or shutters. In the after image, you can see what a difference it made to paint the trim black and add decorative black shutters to the windows.
Before you decide exactly what you want to do to your house, it might be helpful to gather ideas from looking at other homes. Don’t be afraid to drive around your town and look at other homes’ color combinations. Make notes of what you like and dislike. This is a great way to get ideas for your own property.
After you’ve gathered some ideas and sorted out what you do and don’t like, head out to the street and shoot a picture of your home with a digital camera. Next, download the image into your computer and use a design or paint program to digitally enhance the photo. This will allow you to visualize the changes before you actually make them. While this isn’t going to give you a perfectly accurate representation, it can help with a general idea of what certain things might look like. For example, you may have thought that your entire garage door should be painted, but then find that it is too much color and you decide to just trim the outer edge or around the windows.
While you may not have the resources or time to paint your entire home, it is relatively easy and economical to brighten and modernize the look of your home with trim paint. Shutters are also a great option for adding a little something extra to your home’s exterior. If you live in the Southeastern United States, or any area that experiences high winds and possibly violent storms, functional shutters might be a good idea. Otherwise, decorative shutters can be purchased relatively inexpensively at most home centers, and can then be painted to match your home.
