We all look a bit tired after a while. Eyelids droop, the colour drains from our faces and we feel like we need a pick-me-up.
Your home is no different: after a few years without attention, the facade it presents to the world looks worn down and dowdy. It needs a makeover.
But don’t panic.
We’re not talking rebuilding it all: just a few nips and tucks so that your house can look a million dollars on a pauper’s budget.
So here are seven ways to spruce up your house’s exterior while keeping costs down.
House proud: Giving your home a full facelift shouldn’t break the bank if you follow our seven tips
1. Window boxes
Choose your plants carefully and you can have year-round colour springing up under your windows.
Walk past the shelves of cheap plastic boxes in Wickes and look for wooden, stone or decorative ironwork units.
The curvy Anaia wall-mounted Metal planter from La Redoute Interieurs is a discreet little thing that blends into the background to show off the flowers. Available for £11.20 from laredoute.co.uk.
Or if you want to splash out, the Lichfield Planter Company’s red pine window box in Farrow & Ball ‘pigeon’ paint is £210, from thelichfieldplantercompany.co.uk.
2. New windows
Easy-on-the-eye windows make all the difference to your home’s facade. Cheap plastic double glazing looks shoddy.
So when you need to replace it anyway (as you will sooner or later) try good-quality wooden units or at least wood-effect composite — which is so realistic these days, you might need a magnifying glass to tell the difference.
Roseview’s timber-effect sash windows are top-quality (roseview.co.uk).
3. Paint job
Why condemn your home to a dull, grey or red-brown life? Why not go for the bright, joyful pastels that are common in most of the rest of the world?
You could try doing it yourself, but unless you live in a bungalow, it’s safer to get a professional in. Sandtex Cornish Cream paint in a pleasing buttery yellow is £40 for ten litres from B&Q (diy.com).
You can reckon on one litre covering 16 sq m. Remember that you will likely need two coats of the paint.
4. Timber cladding
Warm, beautiful wood softens the image of a house — from log cabins to treehouses, timber feels cosy in the way that bricks never will.
The wood can be painted or plain, to show off its natural grain and beauty. Softwoods will be cheaper but need more treatment than hardwoods, meaning the overall cost is about the same.
Expect to pay in the region of £100 per sq m for the hardwood; half that for softwood, without treatment.
If you want a long-term, low-maintenance option, go for a heat-treated timber cladding at around £80 per sq m.
Red cedar is an attractive softwood option, needing relatively little treatment and lending your house a ‘smooth’ appearance.
For a very traditional look, you can’t beat English oak, however. It needs little treatment if you’re happy for the golden colour to fade naturally, but if you want it to look young and fresh, you’ll need to treat it from time to time.
If you’re going for hardiness, heat-treated woods, such as Accoya, Keywood or Thor cladding, are extremely durable.
5. New fence
It’s the very first thing that peopled see when they visit, so why allow your boring garden fence to become a dried-out line of firewood?
Spruce it up with some decent paint or replace it entirely with something more daring: Rose trellises or low picket fences.
Or you can have panels with slats that open and close like venetian blinds, so you can opt for more light or more privacy — the Flex Fence system from Tuin (tuin.co.uk) is available at £195 for a 2.2m pair of black galvanised rails which form the core of the panels.
6. Big planters
There’s no need to dig up your front garden if you want to add a bit of vegetation. Four big decorative terracotta planters in the corners will make it feel much more enclosed and ‘designed’.
Primrose’s Roman-style terracotta troughs are eye-catching. Available from primrose.co.uk for £150.
7. Stone or slips
Stone cladding has a pretty horrendous reputation, but that’s because people think of the plastic stuff stuck on the outside of brick terraced houses to look like some monstrous experiment gone wrong.
Natural stone tiles look lovely on the right house. They are split off from stone to provide a skin of genuine stone over dull bricks.
A similar product is a brick slip — a thin layer of real brick that can be fitted to an ugly duckling home.
For natural stone tiles expect to pay in the region of £100 per sq m. Brick slips are around £50 per sq m.
