DIY has the potential to take over your life.
You’ve spent incalculable hours sanding floors, painting skirting boards and hammering nails; you’ve wrestled stepladders, trodden on wet varnish and uttered more profanities than you care to remember; you’ve borrowed money, sweated blood and all but given up on sleep …
… but still there’s work to be done.
Whilst your toil has left your home’s interior design likely to blow Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen’s socks off, its exterior leaves a lot to be desired, with tired brickwork, crumbling plaster and grimy windows that wouldn’t look out of place in a Victorian slum.
Something has to be done.
Rather than simply gilding the lily, however, the exterior of your home is obviously the first thing visitors set eyes on – and if you’re decorating a home with a view to selling it, you must make sure it’s as attractive as possible to potential buyers.
Struggling for inspiration? Here are three easy ways to enhance your home’s exterior.
Change Your Front Door
If you want to give your home some extra kerb appeal, it’s crucial that your front door doesn’t resemble the entranceway to a backstreet betting shop, so its design, condition and colour are all incredibly important.
Indeed, the colour of your front door will be one of the first things a visitor will see, so if you’ve taken the time to paint your door an attractive hue, it gives an insight into what lies beyond before they’ve even set foot over the threshold.
Choose Double Glazing
We all know just how important double glazing is to making our homes more energy efficient and reducing external noise – but choosing quality windows can actually enhance the appearance of your home AND boost its value.
Typically, installing double glazing will deliver twice the value of the work, so if you splash out £4,000 on new windows, you’re likely to add £8,000 to the eventual sale price of your home – not to mention the savings you’ll enjoy on your energy bills.
Don’t Neglect Your Garden
So you’ve painted your front door and installed double glazing, but your front garden looks like a muddy battleground, strewn with toy soldiers, littered with children’s bikes and swarming with rampant weeds.
Consequently, whilst you don’t have to be an Alan Titchmarsh, it’s vital your garden looks the part, as it’s one of the first thing visitors will see, making it a gateway of sorts into your home, often setting the tone for the condition of the rest of the property.
What do you think?
Do you have any other ways our readers can enhance the exterior of their homes? Please let us know by leaving a comment below – we’d love to read your thoughts.
