Four tips to transform your home’s exterior

Add a statement door to spruce up your home’s exterior appeal.

(BPT) – Investing in your home’s curb appeal brings fresh energy and life, not only to your property, but also to the entire neighborhood. It creates a welcoming and appealing environment, while also making your home a better candidate for resale, if that’s in your near future. Curb appeal improvements can range from giving your home a facelift with a new paint color to changing out the landscaping for a new look.

Unique Lighting

Lantern-lit walkways, under-shrub lighting and even soft twinkle lights illuminating a front porch, all provide a welcoming atmosphere that invites visitors to your front door. Lighting can also help increase safety outside a home, as it brightens dark corners of your yard and reduces tripping hazards along walkways. Discover beautiful outdoor lighting options carried locally, like the unique lanterns offered by Copper Works Lighting. Created in their local studio, each xture transforms a sheet of copper or brass into an artful home accent. Owner James Carmody said, “Outdoor lighting can transform an ordinary back yard into your outdoor oasis. It can turn a simple front door into in entryway that makes you proud to be home. But not all exterior lighting is the same – each yard and home is unique. Having the right size xture and design for your project can be what sets your house apart.”

Fresh Color

Nothing freshens up a home like a new coat of paint, and whether used on your front door, shutters, trim or siding, it can really impact the look and feel of your home’s exterior. Draw from the season’s most popular colors from paint companies like Benjamin Moore; they feature an endless selection of luscious colors, like their 2013 color of the year Lemon Sorbet. Whether you pair this easily transitional color with soft mirroring pastels like trending mint or coral, or complement it with a strong, de ned gray or navy, changing up your color way adds a pop to your home’s exterior and attract the attention your home deserves.

Statement Door

As the rst one to greet your guests, your front door should make a statement about the style and feel of your home. From wooden doors in bright, inviting colors to open, airy glass doors to ornate iron doors, options are endless, and you’re sure to nd a t that speaks to your aesthetic. Acadian Iron Works features more than 100 unique door choices in stock, and their craftsmanship and durability are equally beautiful and practical. They also offer clients the opportunity to create a custom door, and any Acadian doors can be made as double or single doors, ideal for those installing into an existing home.

Organic Beauty

For green thumb gardeners, incorporating beautiful owerbeds in strategic areas like around the mailbox, next to the driveway, along the sidewalk to the front door and around the front of the home, is a great way to add beautiful curb appeal. Continue to rotate new owers into the owerbeds as the seasons change, allowing you to vary the accent colors in your yard frequently. If you don’t have the time or interest in ower gardening, however, you can create more perennial landscaping beds using hardy plants that require little maintenance. Check with a local garden shop like Akin’s Nursery for information about lowmaintenance perennial plants, trees and shrubs to incorporate into your landscaping. Akin’s Nursery’s knowledgeable staff offers helpful advice on everything from what to plant in different seasons to how to tackle pests and plant disease – they make it easy to maintain a beautiful yard.

Kayleigh Plette contributed to this report.