Your home is a considerable investment. But whether you are looking to sell or settling down, you will want to make your home comfortable, relaxing and stylish. Fortunately, this isn’t difficult, but it takes time, effort, and patience like anything worth doing. Of course, your initial instinct is to renovate and decorate the inside of your home. Still, the exterior needs love and attention too, such as an annual exterior painting to give the house a fresh appearance.
Outside your home is just as important as the inside. First, if you are looking to sell, curb appeal is paramount since it’s how a potential buyer decides to investigate. Second, when you come home from work or entertain guests, your home should feel welcoming. An overgrown yard with uneven bumps and paving just won’t do.
Extensions and Additions
One of the best ways to improve your home’s appeal to yourself and any potential buyers is by adding extra parts. Home extensions include additional rooms, conservatories and attachments such as awnings, a carport and decking. In addition to providing extra functionality to your home, extensions and additions such as these can add a lot of value.
For example, a double-bedroom extension can add up to 25% to the value of a home. A well designed and placed extension or accessory will also add flair and style to your home – vital for curb appeal. Apart from the vastly increased value of your home, an extension will provide endless extra space that can be used for a growing family or to entertain guests.
Extensive Landscaping
One of the most overlooked aspects of a home is the importance of landscaping. You may think that landscaping refers only to gardening, planting and shaping grass. These are all part of the landscaping, but it involves much more. You should spend time doing these things to allow you to make the most of your land and increase curb appeal.
However, proper landscaping extends to other things as well. Such items include patio and decking installation, drainage management and wildlife sustainability. Decking and patios are excellent additions to a home and can add 10% of value. But aside from the visual aesthetics of landscaping, piping and drainage needs to be managed. If not, you could end up with groundwater and flooding.
Door and Window Replacements
One of the most noticeable aspects of a home exterior is the quality of the doors and windows. Doors and windows aren’t made to last forever and take the brunt of the elements because of their placement. Natural disasters, adverse weather and extraneous organic materials can affect the appearance of windows and doors.
For the most part, windows only require regular cleaning, but they can degrade around the seals over time. This will make them less efficient and therefore affect your heating costs. Additionally, buyers often look for window and door quality as a significant buying decision since environmental issues are now a substantial part of selling a property.
To Summarise
There are numerous ways to add some style to your home. The most extensive and expensive of these are extensions and additions, but they will add significant value to your home. Landscaping is also essential since it is immediately noticeable and extends to drainage management and simple gardening. Doors and windows should also be replaced if they begin to become inefficient. This will increase heating costs – a significant factor when trying to sell.
