Whether or not you are planning to sell your home or just want to improve the overall look of it, investing in your home’s curb appeal always makes great financial sense.
If the front yard of your home looks like a barren wasteland or you have trouble seeing your house from the road due to overgrown shrubs, you should seriously consider investing in your home’s curb appeal.
Particularly if you are planning to sell your home, it is important to invest some money and time into your home’s front yard. Your home’s curb appeal is what generates the first impression to prospective home buyers. It could literally prevent a prospective buyer from looking any further at the home. “If this is what the outside looks like, what’s the point of seeing the rest of the house”, is frequently the thought that runs through a buyers mind when seeing a home without any curb appeal.
Adding curb appeal to your home doesn’t necessarily have to involve breaking your banking account. Listed below are some basic steps you can take to improve your home’s curb appeal.
1) Make sure the yard is free from clutter, e.g. lawn toys, patio equipment, unregistered cars and trailers.
2) Dispose of any old / broken lawn furniture or toys.
3) Make sure the yard is mowed, trimmed and raked.
4) If there are patches of dead grass, remove them and get some grass seed.
5) Make sure the gutters are in good working order and not hanging off the home.
6) Clean the gutters if they are not working properly.
7) If there are overgrown shrubs, prune them so the home can be seen from the road.
Add mulch around the shrubs to dress up the shrub area.
9) If the home is lacking shrubs plant some small inexpensive ones around the home’s foundation, and again apply mulch around the base of them.
10) Add a fresh coat of paint to the home if the home has either faded or cracking paint.
11) If the paint looks in good shape, then at least give it a power washing to get off the dirt and grime, and to brighten up the home.
12) Fix anything that is broken on the outside of the home, lights, gutters, shutters, door bells, etc.
13) Add some flowers to the front walkways and entrances.
14) Finally, make sure the yard is kept clean and neat.
With these basic steps your can dramatically improve your home’s curb appeal without breaking the bank. Most of these suggestions take only a little time and effort.
By: Mark Donovan
Posts Tagged ‘Front Yard’
Top Home Improvement Things to Do Before You Sell Your House
April 8th, 2010
Selling your house gives you a list of things to do: pack up your belongings, forward your mail, vow to your kitchen sink that you’ll never forget it. While all these things are important – you don’t want your kitchen sink’s hopes going down the drain – the importance of home improvement weighs heavier. After all, before you can leave your house you might need to sell it, and before you can do that, you might need to improve it. The following is a list of the most important things to do before placing your house on the market.
Get a Paint Job: Few things make a house look worse than chipped paint. Whether it’s on the exterior of the house or behind a bedroom door where you think no one will notice, chipped paint is a quick way to find yourself chipping down the asking price. Instead of presenting a house that looks neglected, leaving potential buyers to think that old paint is just the beginning, buy a few buckets, take a few days, and paint whatever in your house needs to be painted. If your house doesn’t need an entirely new paint job, then simply touch up the areas that need some tender loving care.
Remember the Small Things: We often overlook the small things in favor of looking at the bigger picture, but it’s the small things that make up the bigger picture. Not only is it amazing how much an attention to small details can improve the appeal of your house dramatically, but it’s also amazing how affordable this kind of improvement can be. From something as simple as buying a new shower curtain to redoing the mail box, from planting flowers in the front yard to putting new drapes in the living room, the small changes you make can help make the entire home look detailed in more than one way.
Repair What Really Needs to Be Repaired: Improving your house before you sell it doesn’t mean you should go around fixing everything in sight; chances are, everything in your house can use enhancement: it is, after all, used. Instead of trying to improve everything from the floor to the ceiling, focus on the things that really need repairing. If your carpet doesn’t look brand new but good enough to last a few more years, leave it alone and instead replace the cracked bay window in your living room.
Pay Particular Attention to the Kitchen and Bathrooms: The kitchen and the bathroom are two places where we spend a lot of our time, though for very different reasons. Because we spend so much time in these rooms, we also spend time focusing on them. A dirty bathroom or a kitchen on its last leg will quickly ruin a potential sale. This isn’t to say you should neglect every other room in your house, but put twice as much effort into them than you would, say, the basement.
Use Your Green Thumb or Hire Someone Else Who Has One: We don’t all have a green thumb; in fact, some of us have an odd ability to kill anything with roots. If you don’t have a green thumb, or at least some talent with gardening and landscaping, hire someone who does. Making the outside of your house look nice is as important as the inside’s appeal. The landscaping is what potential buyers will first see and first notice and, as they say, you only get one chance to make a first impression.
By: Jennifer Jordan
The Little Things in Home Improvement – Vinyl Siding, Gardens, and Windows
December 10th, 2009
In every media form dealing with home improvement tips, one inevitably recognizes that the guidelines and suggestions that the host, guest, or specialist recommends is not an over-arching law and is not a formula- in these shows, and in home improvement literature, one will notice that in the place of a universal rule, or a universal code of home improvement laws, the hosts and specialists always strive to point out the little things that can be changed with care and attention.
Instead of a unified mission or goal, the homemaker is best served by pursuing a series of small adjustments that will lend to the overall appeal of the house. With this thought in mind, homemakers should consider the condition of their gardens, of their windows, and of the vinyl siding on their house.
Gardens are an important but often overlooked aspect of the overall house. A barren yard that is without flowers, shrubs, or trees can be a sore sight and can lead to a devaluation of the property. Likewise, a yard that is full of vegetation that has not been properly suited to the style of the house and the neighborhood will suffer as well. Needless to say, a Christmas tree in your front yard is not a good choice if your house is Southern California. If you pay attention to your landscape by contacting a professional landscape service your lawn will improve and with it, the quality of your home will improve as a whole.
Vinyl siding is generally taken for granted as being a purely functional aspect of the home. While it is true that vinyl siding provides a vital role in protecting the home from storm damage and age, vinyl siding can also be a serious aesthetic factor. Typically, vinyl siding will figure into the home’s appeal in a negative way, that is, it is only really noticed once it has fallen into disrepair. But this is all the more reason to take care of your vinyl siding and make sure it is clean and in good condition. Consider it a compliment if you can go an extended period of time without anyone mentioning the condition of your vinyl siding.
The old adage suggests that the ‘eyes are the window to the soul’, equally one might say that the ‘windows, are the windows to the house’s soul,’ Many homemakers leave their windows the same for the entire duration that they are present in a house, but this is a missed opportunity. You can express your personality in unique and creative ways by shopping for windows that fit you and your essence.
Taken alone, any one of these guidelines might seem insignificant when weighed up against the totality of the homemaking project. Certainly, a new flowerpot or a new window by itself will not revitalize and change your home completely, but by compiling a series of these small improvements, your house will be greatly improved.
By: Budda Oliver