Easy Ways to Spruce up the Exterior of your Home

Looking for inexpensive easy ways to spruce up the exterior of your home? I’ve got you covered! Great ideas with before and after photos!

When we moved into our new home last Fall, I remember being very underwhelmed with how the outside looked. It was a beautiful home, but it was covered by overgrown trees, bland siding, and empty windows.

Over the winter I pinned all kinds of inspirational ideas to make my home look better but come summertime, we decided to dedicate the majority of our budget elsewhere. That meant making my home look pretty was going to have to be cheap and not involve all new siding!

I came up with some really great and easy ways to spruce up the exterior of our home. The first was to add in some landscaping details to the front yard.

There was a lot of lawn, even round the focal point trees. I ripped up the lawn around the trees and we cut down the trees that were crowding the house. That alone made such a huge difference!

I planted a mix of perennials that varied in height and lent themselves to a cottage garden look. I let the trees in each section be the anchor and spaced the plants according to the labels because they will get very big over time.

Since they are all small now, I filled in the gaps with annuals. My favorite annuls to use are Supertunias from Proven Winners, but I had a hard time finding enough of them for my yard.

I used what I could find but would definitely recommend getting lots in all of the same variety or the same color. That’s what I need to do differently next time!

Perennials for Zone 5

Sun

• Roses
• Butterfly Bush
• Cone Flowers
• Delphinium
• Blazing Star
• Hollyhock
• Veronica
• False Indigo

Shade

• Proven Winner’s Fire Light Hydrangeas
• Proven Winner’s Incrediball Hydrangeas
• Proven Winner’s Pinky Winky Hydrangeas
• Heuchera
• Hosta
• Peony

Next, I added Window Boxes and Wood Shutters to the front of my house. This brought out the windows while making them look less bare. My windows don’t have any siding around them so they look really plain.

Adding the window boxes and shutters was a great way to balance out the house.

Additionally, I gel stained my garage. I used the same stain on the garage and the shutters so it really tied everything together. I love our large 3-car garage, but I hate the look of a garage on the front of the house.

Since that isn’t something I can change, I wanted to make them a beautiful focal point instead of an eyesore. New doors definitely weren’t in the budget so get staining them was a great option.

I spent less than $100 on each of these projects. The most expensive part of the whole home exterior spruce up was the perennial plants. Obviously that isn’t something you have to do all at once like I did.

Click the linked text below for tutorials on how I:

• made my own window boxes,
• ran drip line to them for hands-free watering,
• built the wood shutters and
• gel stained our garage.

Some other small improvement things I did were switching out the light fixtures, updating our house number, and adding a path from the front steps across the lawn to the front door.

I also planted these beautiful VegTrug™ Barrel Planters and Galvanized Ribbed Barrel Planters from Gardener’s Supply Company on my steps and porch to add some dimension.

I hope this post gives you some great inspiration on how you can update your own home! Simple changes can make a big impact. Even if new siding isn’t in your budget!

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