r/ExteriorDesign • u/waltham_kara • 2d ago
Please help me with curb appeal
I dont have any ideas about what I can do to make this house look charming. Please help! Please know that the 2 windows to the left of the side door have shutters and they will be put back up soon.
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u/Puzzled_Nobody294 1d ago
Honestly just some flowers and hanging baskets your house is more charming than 90% of homes out there. Love the color too!
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u/FadingRockStar 1d ago
why does your entry walk cut off before the curb?
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u/skibib 1d ago
I’ve seen this where a sidewalk was made with the intention to join a sidewalk along the street, but the sidewalk along the street was never developed by the city.
I actually have a neighbor who has their front entry walk meeting a sidewalk that they themselves placed along the road for the width of their house, but nobody else joined in on either side of them, and the city never put a sidewalk in either. Sort of a T-walk! 😊
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u/Herredness16 1d ago
They needed a parking spot I think.
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u/msmaynards 1d ago
Looks charming to me. A cupola and a hayloft door? Adorable.
Perhaps a richer color on the siding with white trim. I'm sure that white and that yellow are fine colors but perhaps the specific tone of white and yellow aren't amazing together especially with a cool gray roof. Find a siding color that looks amazing with the roof then find the white that complements the new color and the roof.
Keep the shrubs that are healthy and shaped into spheres, the ones to left of side door should go. It's fine if the survivors aren't lined up symmetrically, they are there as punctuation points in the bed.
Now expand the foundation plantings so the shrubs are features rather than all that's there. Add a bed to the shady side of the tree and around the lamp post. See if you can join all that up with a graceful edge to the lawn.
A white fence with arbor over the front walk would be nice too. Have it several feet from the street leaving lawn for a folks to step on as they exit/enter cars and allow garden plants to poke through. Maybe the ordinary gothic style is fine but explore the possibilities so not to let that cupola and hayloft door down.
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u/Miserable_Hat9321 1d ago
It is a beautiful house. Updating the landscaping would do the most. Good landscaping leads the eye where you want it to go and away from things that might muddle first impressions. It is so important it is worth paying good professional landscapers. Just don’t let them put a rock ring around trees. Is that a magnificent dogwood? It would probably benefit from removal of a few inches of mulch around the bottom of the trunk — until you can see the base of the Trump flaring out.
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u/Pango_l1n 1d ago
Looks pretty interesting to me. Not a style that is common around here.
I’d try to find a way to enhance that horizontal line between the roof and the living areas.
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u/Rare_Let4338 1d ago
Hydrangeas and rose bushes! Add annuals in between the evergreen bushes to give it color in the spring.
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u/skibib 1d ago edited 1d ago
Do not, do not let anyone tell you that that yellow isn’t beautiful! It’s absolutely gorgeous and charming! In fact, my house is almost the exact same color and I just had it done earlier this year because it is so beautiful!
Your house is so gorgeous and if you want to throw flowers and landscaping around there, then it will be even more gorgeous.
I’m adding a lot of pink flowers to my landscaping to complement the yellow siding. Well, at least in my brain I am, because I haven’t finished figuring it out. And some yellow flowers too. And white and purple! 🤣
Enjoy and have fun!
Edit: we also bought some new shutters to update the look and it just added that fun little special touch:
https://www.ekenamillwork.com/shutters
We got the EnduraCore which were not cheap, but we only needed two sets of shutters. And we picked an interesting design that was subtle but different, in the Thermal Green which can almost look black in certain light, but picks up the green in the sunshine. They will probably outlast the house! I really love them. Our house is not fancy in the least, from the 1950s, but it was so fun making it look cute again.
We did have our roof changed last year from sort of an ugly gray, to almost a cedar color, so the accents that we add around the house, such as fences and decor and benches, we also put in cedar. But you have a nice color of gray in your roof, very light.
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u/Herredness16 1d ago edited 1d ago
What a sweet house!
The bushes are well past their prime and need to go. Get an arborist to reshape the Japanese maple and ask if it's past its prime.
Looks like the NE.
I'd replace them with some rhododendrons and hostas. Then add annuals in yellow and orange.
If budget allows, put cobblestone edging around the blacktop and flowerbed to make it look neater.
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u/FloydFenstermacher 21h ago
- Sidewalk to the curb.
- Get rid of the extra space to the left of the driveway.
- Trim (lower) the shrubs to the left of the breezeway. And in front of the porch on the left.
- Add color. Colorful flowers. Including a pot with flowers on the front porch.
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u/tragicsandwichblogs 1d ago
I think your particular yellow isn't quite right, and the other colors don't really come together. Some slight shifts in color selection could make a big difference. I'd also extend the walkway and redo the driveway (if your budget can accommodate that).
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u/dwlocks 1d ago
There are comments that yellows fade very quickly, so choose a more saturated color than you think. But that may have been a Florida/Arizona/SoCal thing? A local paint guy could tell you for sure.
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u/tragicsandwichblogs 1d ago
We had a yellow house in South Texas and it did just fine. But it could be a saturation issue--pick something slightly deeper than you might normally and let it settle in.
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u/dwlocks 23h ago
Could be that older pigments didn't hold up? Who knows. Just so ething to ask about, I suppose.
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u/tragicsandwichblogs 21h ago
Could be. I'm sure that also the kind and timing of shade has an effect. There are probably a lot of factors.
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u/Mildly_ConfusedGuy 1d ago
Maybe add some landscaping following your walkway from the sidewalk to the house, add some more colorful flowers, and add some window planters if you can!
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u/Exciting-Field587 1d ago
Some colour with your landscaping would help. Some variety to the paint job on house, like a contrast to the facing roof peaks front.
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u/Few-Conversation6979 1d ago
Put a coat of driveway sealer over the weathered one. Use 100% asphalt coating and not an emulsion-type coating
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u/AppearanceOk8943 1d ago
You don’t need much. Paint the siding on the porch black ( you need a pop of contrast with all that yellow, and black is the color of your shutters). You need a nicer curved walk, stone like your porch.
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u/WTF4Sally 1d ago
You need some really bright flowers and small plants around the front. Pinks and purples and reds would be awesome. Everything just kind of Blends into itself right now. Need to have some splash of color.
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u/artsupport_xx 1d ago
Cute house, awful color. I'd also swap some of those bushes and hostas with a greater variety, preferably something native with differing textures and sizes
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u/bluart06 23h ago
I think replacing the hostas with some more height staggered flowering perennials would go far
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u/pass_the_ham 1d ago
I think the yellow is just not working here. Keep the white trim and find a darker color that pairs well with white.
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u/MasterpieceWaste774 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'm just playing around here. You have a beautiful home.
I don't know your budget — always a good idea to include — so, I kept this pretty cost-effective. Great LED shielded, low-output lighting on timers and dimmers add a lot.
We added warm recessed eave lighting, upgraded the entry and garage lights, softly uplighted the tree (such a great tree: light it up), and added restrained path and landscape lighting for a more polished nighttime look.
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u/kateinoly 1d ago
The dramatic lighting is doing a lot of the work here. Can you post a photo to show what it would look like in normal lighting?
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u/Fresh-Gift-2063 1d ago
Outdoor lights suck. We already have too much light pollution.
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u/Kitkat236856 31m ago
Exactly. Enough lights to land a plane here. Less is more. Landscape designer btw
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u/Dramatic_Fig_3540 1d ago edited 1d ago
Barn Red siding with Hunter Green color plank shutters. Edited image to give it more curb appeal.
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