Before and After: A $200 Curb Appeal Project Makes the Whole House Look Newer
If you’ve been looking for a way to freshen up your home’s curb appeal but are unsure where to start, this project is for you. When Hussain Aslam first bought his 1977 house the house had “zero curb appeal,” he says. “The grass was not green and it was barren except for a couple of bushes and four boxwoods. The rest was just weeds.”
Plus, the dingy look of the outside had Hussain feeling a little down when coming home. “The bare bricks also gave a dull old look to the house that made us feel old as its residents,” he says.
This was the first house he’d ever purchased, and he “wanted it to feel more like home than an old barren neglected building,” Hussain says. “We also wanted to bring it close to nature and make it colorful and beautiful.”
Working over about a year, Hussain slowly made small — and affordable — updates that freshened the whole look of the house. The first step was to level the ground in front and straighten the bed in front of the windows. Then, Hussain removed some of the old bushes and repositioned the Japanese maple to give it a more prominent place.
Finally, Hussain added new plants and new grass. “The new grass took time to sprout from seed and we pulled all the weeds by hand through the growth period,” he says. And while he waited for the plants to come in, Hussain painted the once mottled brick a sleek gray to make it look more contemporary.
“We did not spend too much and changed how our house could be perceived,” Hussain says. “Everyone who saw it said WOW and it was low maintenance and mostly a one time effort.”
In the end, Hussain created a home that makes him feel good every time he sees it.
“It’s full of life and color and we enjoy the walk from the driveway to the main door so much that we would park on the driveway rather than in the garage to walk through the flower and plants to our front door,” he says. “If I were to redo I would pick plants with fragrance to make it even better!”
Inspired? Submit your own project here.