New Year Renovations: Exterior and Yard

Welcome to the finale of our three-part blog series on New Year Renovation inspiration and ideas!

In part one we covered Living Spaces and Bathrooms, and in part two we had some fun with Kitchen renovation ideas.

This week the topic we are looking at is the exterior and yard of your home. Upgrading the exterior of your home is important for a number of reasons. If you are considering selling your house, then you want to attract as many potential buyers as possible. One of the toughest parts of selling is generating initial interest, and renovations and home improvement are usually a given. Focusing on your exterior and yard is a great tactic as it creates a great first impression.

If you are planning on keeping your home for years to come, regular upkeep of your exterior and yard prevents costly repairs that are normally caused by homeowner negligence. Clean the leaves out of your gutters, plant trees a safe distance from your foundation, and keep shrubs and dirt at least three feet from the edge of your foundation to keep pests away from your home.

Pro tip: Keeping up with your exterior and yard also can help you fight crime and deter criminals. Overgrown landscaping provides nice hiding spots for burglars to roam around. With regular maintenance of your trees and shrubs coupled with strategic outdoor light locations, you can start calling yourself Batman with all the crime prevention steps you are taking.

If those reasons are not convincing enough, would you believe us if we said maintaining your yard and exterior of your home helps to improve your community? Sounds a little far-fetched, we know. But creating curb appeal shows that you take pride in your home, which leads to pride in your neighbourhood. Not to mention the fact that when you are out working on your yard you get to interact and build relationships with neighbours. When your neighbours see you diligently fixing up and maintaining your home it gives them inspiration, and in some cases guilt, that they should be taking better care of their home and yard. Which will give your neighbourhood a slight uptick in value and quality when other neighbours start to maintain their properties.

Let’s take a look at some ideas for spicing up your home’s exterior and yard.

Front door

If you are looking for a relatively quick and easy way to freshen up the exterior of your home, upgrading your front door is an option to consider. In fact, we wrote an entire blog article on the importance of your front door. You can get creative and fun by giving your front door a boost of colour to make it pop.  Integrate sidelights or a transform with your door to add natural light and brighten your foyer.

Siding

Where should we begin with the benefits of upgrading your siding? Siding is a crucial part of preserving the value of your home. The versatility of vinyl siding is a huge help when looking to boost the curb appeal of your home. As we like to say at Centra: if you can dream it, we can build it. Vinyl siding gives you complete flexibility with colours, textures, and profiles.

Not only do you have the flexibility of the exterior design, siding protects your home from the elements and provides your home with a fully sealed envelope. Investing in quality vinyl siding will also positively impact the overall energy efficiency of the home.  The fully sealed envelope prevents bugs such as termites from causing harm to the structure of your home. In other words, keep the creepy crawlers out, and the energy and value savings in.

Porch

If you already have a porch on your home, you should look at refreshing it. Add some comfortable seating, brush off the cobwebs, and actually make this a space where you can enjoy the sunrise and sunsets. If your home does not have a porch, porches can help to add balance to the front of your home. While they are not super inexpensive to build they are a much more budget-friendly option than adding an insulated addition to your home.

Front yard

Creating a welcoming entry sets the tone for your home. Taking control of the greenery, having a clear path to your front door, and maintaining a welcoming porch are all factors for this. Plants make a home more hospitable; consider using container gardens and solar lighting to line the path to your door.

Paint

Don’t underestimate the value of a fresh coat of paint. Refinish your trim around the windows, touch up your wood fencing or lattices, and look at painting your garage door. Be brave with your exterior colour choices. The best part about paint is that if you end up disliking your colour decision, you can switch it up whenever you feel necessary.

Thank you for taking the time to read our New Year Renovations blog series!

We are your certified Window Geeks

Centra Windows is not only the manufacturer but also the installer of its product, which enables us to offer a full warranty, eliminating any confusion between product performance and installation. We view the house as a system and understand how each of the elements must work correctly to maximize the comfort and energy efficiency of your home. Contact our local Employee Owners at 1-888-534-3333 or send us an email at info@centra.ca for more information about this topic and many more. You can also sign up for our biweekly newsletter, providing all the tips and tricks about the window industry.