In a dream world, everyone who sees your house will feel the urge to come inside. Its incredible curb appeal creates an inviting look and feel. Your home stands out among the rest because it’s so beautifully designed on the outside. For all these people know, the inside could be an absolute state! That’s one of the quirks of home ownership: interior design only matters to you and the few people you invite into your home, but exterior design matters to everyone.
And yet, in a cruel twist of irony, most of us dedicate the majority of our time to interior design. We want our homes to look lovely and feel livable – but what about the outside? A lack of curb appeal makes your home look terrible to onlookers, so it’s time to ensure that doesn’t happen.
What’s the best way to do this? Here are the major curb appeal killers that’ll make your home look uninviting:
Overgrown Garden Areas
Terrible garden maintenance will ruin your home’s curb appeal. When you don’t look after a garden, it starts to grow out on its own. There’s nothing preventing it from getting wild and overgrown, so you end up with something akin to a gnarly forest. Weeds grow everywhere, grass is almost up to your knees, and flowers have grown and died multiple times.
It paints a very sad picture of your home and is one of the first things people notice when they pass it.
Overgrown garden areas give the impression that your home isn’t cared for. They make people think that the people who live there shut themselves inside and never go out. With that in mind, make an effort to maintain and improve your garden throughout the year. Never let it get out of hand; cut things down and keep it all neat and tidy. A well-kept garden makes a home infinitely more inviting and is the first step in improving your curb appeal for good.
Outdated Exterior Paintwork
Have you ever walked passed a house and noticed the paintwork looks faded or ancient? It ruins the way the home looks, particularly if the paint is chipping off in places and there are large patches. You don’t need to be a home design expert to know that outdated exterior paintwork makes a house look old and unappealing!
Look at your home and see if it could use a new lick of paint. Apply a fresh coat to witness an immediate improvement that de-ages your property and makes it look as close to brand-new as possible. Moreover, you could switch up the paintwork and apply a completely new color to your home. It’s a clever way of breathing new life into your abode and making it stand out.
Fresh paint is a simple and cost-effective upgrade to your home’s exterior and is guaranteed to boost curb appeal for years to come. To be honest, even if your paintwork isn’t chipping away or fading, this can be a stellar idea to give your property a new lease of life.
Damaged or Dirty Roofing
Many parts of your home go unnoticed until they present a serious problem. This couldn’t be more true of your roofing! Nobody pays attention to their roofing until it either caves in, causes a leak, or looks too bad to ignore. All the while, it’s ruining your curb appeal and making your house look awful from the outside.
A damaged or dirty roof is an eyesore. You spot it from a mile away – especially if tiles have fallen off, there’s moss growing everywhere, and the houses next door to you have much cleaner roofs! Something must be done to stop this issue and reverse your home’s fortunes.
If dirt is your only problem, then a roof cleaning company will sort it out within a few hours. This normally requires some serious pressure washing to remove all the dirt and grime, leaving you with a shiny “new” roof. For damaged roofing, a top-rated roofer can come along and replace lost shingles, seal any cracks, or do anything else to repair or replace the entire roof.
Either way, you’ve now got a clean and undamaged roof that sits atop your home like a proud hat. It’s no longer a terrible sight and will add to your curb appeal – particularly if it now looks nicer than your neighbors’.
Sagging or Messy Gutters
There are cases when your roof looks as close to perfect as it can be, but there’s something just below it that’s causing a curb appeal problem: the gutters.
Every house needs guttering to filter rainwater away and down to drains. It prevents damage to your roof and can help you avoid flooding during stormy seasons. Nevertheless, gutters always get clogged with debris and can absolutely ruin the way your house looks. Clogged gutters get weighed down and start sagging – not to mention you see wet leaves, sticks, and who knows what else poking out of them.
More to the point, all of this debris rubs off on the gutters and makes them black and dirty. This stands out on your home and ruins the way it looks to passers-by. Get into the habit of maintaining your gutters with regular gutter cleaning to keep them in tip-top shape. It’s also worth buying and installing gutter guards that fit onto your gutters and prevent things from clogging them.
Old Window Frames
There’s a common theme here that anything old and outdated will make your house look ugly. That’s also true when looking at your windows – outdated window frames can start peeling away and may look extra old and crusty. This damages curb appeal and becomes a focal point for anyone looking at your house.
They don’t see the nice paintwork or the clean roof; all they focus on are the outdated window frames that make your home seem ten times older. Annoyingly, fixing this problem will require a decent chunk of work. There will come a time when you need to replace old window frames with new ones. It’s a worthwhile investment – they should last for decades – and you will instantly have a nicer-looking home exterior.
Broken Fencing/Exterior Walls
Do you have fencing or walls surrounding your home? Wooden fencing acts as a lovely little barrier and can complete the homely look. However, wind and time will batter your fence and leave it partially broken or beaten down. The result is a damaged fence that barely stands upright and makes your property look like a mess! It’s a similar situation for any brick walls; some of the bricks may crumble, and the wall itself starts to sag.
Don’t let broken fencing or walls cause a curb appeal conundrum. You can fix them or knock them down and erect new ones. A lovely fence or wall outside your home provides lots of privacy and upgrades the exterior design.
An Unkempt Driveway
When it comes to neglected parts of your home, the driveway is up there as one of the most ignored. It’s not something you even consider part of your home, yet it plays a significant role in curb appeal. Nice driveways are easy to spot and bring your home’s exterior together. Bad ones create a terrible first impression and will make everyone think your house looks ugly.
What does an unkempt driveway look like? It could have weeds growing everywhere, cracks forming in the asphalt, tiles out of place, etc. Different types of driveways will have different problems – take a step back and look at yours to identify the issues. You might be lucky and notice that years of dirt and grime are the biggest concern. In that case, you can solve this problem with a pressure washer to reinvigorate this area.
Stains, Dirt or Mildew On The Walls
Finally, there are general stains and dirt that might linger on your walls. You’ll notice these when checking the paintwork, though your home may also have siding or fascia that can’t be painted. Give your exterior a lovely deep clean to remove decades of dirt, and it’ll soon look as new as the day you bought it.
Mildew is another common problem outside your home, as it can cling to walls or grow between bricks. This turns a lovely property into one that’s green and black in places. Without wanting to beat the same drum over and over, a pressure washer is excellent in this situation, too! It’s probably the best tool you can buy for your home, especially when it comes to increasing curb appeal.
Correcting your curb appeal problems might take a long time. There are plenty of things to check and deal with – but preventing future issues is a lot easier. You just need to keep up with regular maintenance in all of the areas mentioned above. Look after your garden, keep your fence/wall in check, clean your roof periodically, unclog and clean the gutters, treat your window frames to make them last longer, and wash the walls/driveway a couple of times a year.