6 Easy Ways To Elevate Your Curb Appeal This Weekend

Making your home the envy of every other on the block doesn't have to be an intimidating task. Create an inviting entry that will make passersby do double takes. With just a few simple additions and touch-ups, your home's curb appeal can soar, says Adam Millhouse, co-founder of Millhouse Howell Landscape Company. You can give an exterior a face-lift with a few easy projects that can be completed in a weekend.

Dial up curb appeal with simple solutions like installing a cozy lantern on the front porch or planting window boxes with seasonal blooms. Elevating your exterior only requires you to get your hands a little bit dirty with these easy, DIY-friendly tricks. Try these five do-it-yourself ideas.

Lighting

Don't keep a charming home in the dark. Light fixtures illuminate the exterior at night and set a welcoming tone for the front entry. Hang a stylish lantern from the ceiling of the front porch, or flank the front door with a matching pair of fixtures. Millhouse recommends using low voltage lighting and being careful not to go overboard and get too bright. He also says that the trick to professional-grade landscape lighting, is placing is strategically and creatively.

"We like to like to light up main elements of the house, like columns by a front door or corners or the house," Millhouse says. "Lights in the branches and structure of nearby trees can also go a really long way and sometimes even eliminate your need for a lot of pathway lights."

Fencing

Build a border around your front lawn while adding major curb appeal. Call upon classic New Orleans' style with a wrought iron fence, or choose a traditional white picket fence reminiscent of Mayberry. When fencing up your front lawn, just be careful not to close your entryway off too much, though, Millhouse warns.

"You don't want it to feel like you're not inviting or blocking anyone out," he says. "If you're gonna do a fence in the front yard, I would make sure that it's very aesthetically pleasing, elegant, and doesn't feel like you're you're cutting your home off from the public."

Painting

Painting a front door is an affordable, easy way to infuse the entry with personality. Go bold with a bright red, or pick a playful powder blue. Shutters are another easy, traditional addition that bring instant charm to an exterior, and painting them can kick curb appeal up another notch. Whether you choose a neutral hue or a vibrant shade, be sure that the colors of the shutters and front door blend well with each other, along with the rest of your home's facade and landscaping.

Planting

Who isn't attracted to eye-catching flower arrangements? Plant containers with seasonal blooms in a variety of colors, shapes, and textures, and display them on the front porch. Millhouse recommends sticking to seasonal blooms in containers and sticking to longer lasting plants in larger flower beds because those aren't so easily switched out.

Choose one large container, or group a trio of smaller pots together. Window boxes are another way to add fresh style to your home's exterior and experiment with new combinations of flowers for a striking look. Millhouse advises that when choosing a color scheme, green and white is always pleasing for a clean, minimalist look. Then, you can begin to stir the pot by incorporating one more consistent color in there, like the pink, green, and white scheme of his own family home.

Living

Make your porch a place where people want to sit and stay awhile. Create an outdoor living area (if space allows) by installing a porch swing and setting up a bistro table and chairs. If you're working with a front porch or patio, create a spot—however small—for lounging and entertaining with outdoor furniture like wicker couches and rocking chairs. If you don't have the square footage for a full outdoor living area, Millhouse recommends creating what he calls a "transition space": an outdoor area that begins the process of welcoming you into the home. Walkways, he says, are exactly the place to begin the welcome wagon.

"I think it's nice to have that kind of transition space before you're either entering the home or right after you're exiting the home," he says. "I think walkways shouldn't necessarily just serve as like a hallway to the front door. They should be an experience in and of themselves and that can be accomplished by how lay out the walkway and plant around it."

Taming

If something about your yard feels outdated, Millhouse says that the most common suspect is overgrowth. Easily transport your yard into the 21st century by getting a handle on over-planting that could be curbing curb appeal.

"When we are called in on projects, what we'll run into the most is is over-planting," says Millhouse. "When you've got a lot of different layers of different plants and it's not very consistent, or there's a group of one thing here and a group of another thing there, what we try to do is take it out and simplify. Once we get everything cleaned up and gone, the house can breathe and it looks so much better. Keep things simple and minimal."