Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Are you missing the obvious when you give your home an exterior makeover?

People love to make their house look beautiful on the outside. Most often the way to do that is to add landscaping, shutters or a nice front door color. It can really make their home look cozy and warm. There are a few thing that get overlooked by most people when beautifying their homes exterior. I really like adding a few features to the outside of a house that go a long way towards making it look neat and tidy. Let me reveal a few of my tricks to improve your house's look.

The first thing I recommend is to hide those trash cans! If your neighborhood is like mine, it is populated by those horrible bright blue or green trash cans and recycling bins. You can neatly line them up on the side of your house, but they still stick out like a sore thumb. 
 This is a relatively simple way to hide your garbage bins. It is made of 1x6 tongue and groove pine with the beveled edge out. its nailed to a pressure treated 2x4 frame and stained to match the house. The top has roofing to match the house, and the hinges and hardware are painted to blend in. It's very simple and clean looking, and instead of horrible trash cans, you have a nice feature that adds to the attractiveness of your home.


Something else that effects the look of your house is the electrical meter bolted on the side of your house. Its so common that I bet you don't even notice it on your own home...  Until it's gone, that is. This is a matching enclosure to compliment the trash storage on the other end of the house. The electrical meter is inside, hidden from view as you approach the house, but easily accessible to the electric company or anyone who needs to get at it. It is a much better look than the pipes and metal case of the electrical meter.
 The last feature added to this house doesn't hide anything in particular, But it lets the homeowner add a vertical bit of greenery to a blank wall on the side of the home. Using square lattice instead of the normal diagonal keeps to the traditional New England beach home style. A climbing hydrangea growing up it adds woody vines, a dark green leaf and beautiful flowers to the muted gray of the wall.
The lattice is sandwiched in the rectangular frame keeping to the simple square trim work that is a design feature on the rest of the house. By hanging the lattice right on the house, it prevents it from being moved by weather or the plants themselves and looks clean for years to come.

 These are just a few tricks to make your house look neater and cleaner year round. Attention to detail is important to make your home look its absolute best. You can easily add little features like these to make a huge difference in the way your house looks from the outside. These tricks can be applied to all sorts of the necessary parts of your home that just don't look good. Just look around, I am sure you will find something to hide...  Hmmmm, that air conditioning condenser could use a makeover too. 

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