When Darci and Matt Haney saw the "for sale" 1938 cottage a few blocks from where they were living in Carlton, Ore., they fell in love with its architecture.
Susan Seubert, for 'This Old House'
The Haneys of Carlton, Ore., boosted their curb appeal with new plants, a gravel path, landscape lights and heftier porch posts.
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"It was pretty overgrown," recalls Darci Haney, who runs a small design company. They bought it anyway and began clearing the space to restore the two-bedroom's exterior charm.
"We did the work ourselves," she says, including new plantings, a gravel path, landscape lighting and heftier porch posts. They repaired and painted the cedar siding but spent the bulk of the project's cost, $25,000 to $30,000, on a new roof and energy-efficient windows.
"We absolutely love it. There's nothing we would change," Haney says of the renovation, completed last summer.
As more Americans remodel existing homes, rather than move to new ones, they're maximizing not only their renovation budgets but also their entire property.
"People are going back to the front of the house," to entertain and relax, says Amy Hughes, features editor ofThis Old House magazine. "It's kind of a throwback." As part of that trend, she says, more people are restoring or adding front porches.
She welcomes the effort, saying, "the entry is the handshake of your home," whether it's a beautiful porch, walkway or front door. She says homeowners can create an inviting entry simply by adding light sconces on each side of the front door and using window boxes, pathway lighting or hanging planters.
"We encourage people to sweat the small stuff," she says, adding it can be inexpensive and have "a huge payoff" in both curb appeal and homeowner satisfaction.
"If you don't like the look of your house, it can markedly color your life within its walls," says architect Sarah Susanka in her book, Not So Big Remodeling, published by Taunton. "Even if you don't really need to change the exterior, give yourself permission to consider giving it a prettier face."
Try lipstick. If people have little to spend, she suggests they paint the window sashes, or the storm windows, a strong color. "I call this the 'lipstick' approach, because it has the same effect as makeup on a face," she says, noting that it draws attention to one small element and makes the whole look more appealing as a result.
Kimberly Lacy, a designer on HGTV's Curb Appeal: The Block, agrees. She encourages homeowners to use color and says the front door is often a good place to make a statement. She recommends they pick a hue that complements either the house's exterior, its landscaping or its neighborhood.
"That's the perfect place to be brave, because it's just a quart of paint" and can be easily changed, says Jackie Jordan, director of color marketing at Sherwin-Williams. She says red, blue, green, brown and black are popular. More daring favorites: deep plum, purple, burnt orange.
Hughes says she's even seeing tangerine, teal and yellow. "You can take risks and do a lime-green door if the rest of the house is subdued," she says. "But don't think of the door alone."
She says exterior colors should call out interesting details but match the intensity of neighboring homes, adding, "You don't want to be the sore thumb."
In exterior makeovers, Hughes says Americans are using more manmade, weather-resistant materials such as PVC trim, fiber-cement siding, fiberglass doors and Trex decking. She says they've become less expensive and better looking.
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