One of the trickiest things about renovating your home’s facade is the sheer number of choices and decisions to be made.
You might find yourself falling in love with a certain type of material or finish you saw on a show home, while also having your heart set on a design you came across on Pinterest.
But how will your facade look when you combine all the elements you love? Will it be cohesive and contemporary, or disjointed and disappointing?
As a specialist exterior designer, I often see renovators choose stunning features for their home without giving them the space they need to truly shine. Too many different features on a facade can look cluttered and unattractive, and the wrong combination or placement of colours and finishes can destroy the look of your facade entirely.
My tip for solving this problem is to choose one main feature to be the star of the show; the diva who takes centre stage with everything else complementing it, rather than competing against it.
Choose the star feature first and then design everything else around it. One or two “stars” are best. If there are too many standout items with varying textures, shades, colours, patterns, sizes or visual weights, the house begins to look confused and cobbled-together instead of cohesive and well-designed.
When updating your facade, often the focal point will be your entry and front door. You can make your entrance the star feature by adding some minor structural elements, putting in some new feature panelling, or installing a new portico or roof over the top of the entryway.
Then everything else works to visually support your star feature. In the above example, this would be the landscaping, lighting, driveway, paths, fences and the rest of the house exterior.
There are so many fabulous products out there, but you don’t need to use them all at once to make your home look spectacular. Like a beautiful piece of art, if the frame is too ornate it detracts from the picture, so make sure your chosen star feature is accentuated, not diminished by its surroundings.
A fantastic facade renovation need not rely on a big budget, either. The right combination of colours and materials and a clever arrangement of these can completely transform your facade without massive changes to the structure of your existing home.
Jane Eyles-Bennett is Australia’s only exterior designer specialising in house facades. Click here to view a selection of Before and After facade designs, created for clients of her business Hotspace Consultants.
If you’ve ever renovated, you know the costs can add up very quickly, so it pays to put some serious thought into what you want to achieve before you even pick up a hammer or call a trades-person.
Every renovator has a budget to work to and wants to get the biggest bang for their buck, but not everyone knows how to do that.
Having assisted thousands of clients to plan their renovations, here are my top three tips to help you spend your renovation dollar wisely:
Focus your money on key areas
With all the renovation shows around, it’s so easy to let your imagination go wild and come up with fantastic ideas for making over your own home. However, this is also the quickest way to run out of money. If you try to renovate every area, chances are costs will blow out significantly.
You need to be completely objective and focus your money on the areas that will have the biggest impact on the overall feeling or usability of the property. If you’re renovating to live in the property, that’s probably going to be your kitchen, your indoor living spaces and perhaps your outdoor living spaces.
If you’re renovating to sell, keep in mind that not every area warrants renovating because you won’t recoup the money you have outlaid.
In this instance, I would advise focusing your attention on the facade as this is what people see first. If they don’t like the outside, they’re unlikely to look inside and then you’ve lost a buyer before they’ve even set foot on your property.
After the facade, concentrate on the main living spaces because these are the areas where people will spend the most time.
Do the areas you can do well
Don’t spread your money too thin by trying to do everything. Instead, work out which areas get the most use and do these key areas as well as your budget allows.
If you are renovating to live in, enjoy the newly made-over spaces until you can afford to do up the next thing. If you are renovating to sell, it’s better to do the key areas well rather than trying to revamp the entire house and doing everything poorly.
Don’t underestimate the power of a good clean and tidy
Many times I have had clients come to me looking for renovation ideas when all they really needed to do is tidy up and declutter some areas. This can be particularly true for areas like the yard and garage.
Tidying up straggly bushes and gardens, doing a bit of high-pressure cleaning on driveways and putting away or getting rid of clutter can make a huge difference to the external appearance of a property. Do the same with the interior of the house.
Declutter surfaces and rooms first and then focus your money on renovating the key areas of the house.
Ultimately, the aim is to do the best that you can with the areas that will have the greatest impact on your life (if you are living in the property) or on your buyer (if you are selling) and then make the best of the rest.
Jane Eyles-Bennett is one of Australia’s top exterior designers and owner of design firm Hotspace Consultants. Download her FREE “Home Renovators Guide to Planning your Facade Transformation” here.
As an interior and exterior designer, I love helping clients modernise the facades of their homes. While there is so much scope to dramatically improve the appearance, it can actually be quite a complicated process – particularly when the renovation requires more than just a lick of paint.
The biggest issue is that aspiring renovators often don’t know where to start. There are so many possibilities and it can be hard to know how much to do, how much to spend and what will create the biggest impact.
1. What don’t you like about the house?
Don’t look at the big picture at this point. That will just overwhelm you and you’ll end up throwing a lot of money at the project without creating the best transformation.
Instead, try to work out all the individual things you aren’t happy with. Is the roof-line too high or too low? Are the bricks an unattractive colour? Do you dislike the window frames? Does the landscaping need work?
Does the entryway make a statement? What about balustrades, windows, and verandas?
2. What do you like about it?
Are there elements that you can work with? Perhaps the property has a beautiful garden or some unique design features. Maybe you like the shape or style of the house.
Before beginning any design work, I always ask my client (and myself) the following questions:
3. What style do you want to achieve?
It’s a good idea to put together a Pinterest board or scrapbook with pictures of what you like in other houses. Think of it as a book of inspiration and ideas.
Don’t worry too much at this stage about how you are going to apply those ideas. This is just to identify the style you are most drawn to. It’s also a great thing to have ready, if you decide to get help from an exterior designer.
4. How can I take what I have and change it to what I want?
There is a bit of skill required for this part, so consider getting some professional advice.
Ultimately, you are aiming to capitalise on the good points of the house while altering, concealing or camouflaging the aspects you are not happy with and blending it with the style you prefer. The main things to remember here are the following three design principles:
Focus – create one great focal point. Don’t have too many fancy features or different materials and colours.
Balance – Make sure your facade is visually balanced. This does not necessarily mean symmetrical; you can create great visual balance with the colours and materials you choose.
Repetition – Repeat colours, materials and shapes through the design. Try to have at least two elements in each colour/material you use, but only have a maximum of three to four colours/materials in total.
Conclusion
Finally, it is extremely important to ask the right questions when renovating a house facade so that you can make an informed decision. Considering factors such as budget, design, materials, and time frame will help make your project a success. It is important to have a clear plan for renovation so that you can enhance the beauty and functionality of your home.
Give your house facade a new identity with Hotspace Consultants. Our experts offer the best designs and solutions according to your needs, making your home stand out in the crowd.
If you’re planning to sell your home, you’ll want to make sure it’s looking as good as possible so that you can get the best possible price for it.
Perhaps you’ve thought of doing a quick makeover or renovation to attract a higher sale price.
But how far should you go? Should you even renovate at all? If you do renovate, how do you know how much to spend, where to start and when to stop? How can you guard against over-capitalising? Getting it right can be a tricky business.
Sometimes real estate agents will advise potential vendors not to renovate. The problem with this is that it can give your buyer more room to negotiate.
The last thing you want is for the buyer to come in and start dictating the terms. If they’re looking at the house and thinking “Well, the kitchen needs doing and the bathroom is a mess, so I’ll deduct the costs of that from the sale price before making my offer”, before you know it, they will have offered $30,000 less than the asking price.
Ideally, you want to renovate for maximum improvement at minimal cost. Here’s how to do that:
Start at the end and not the beginning
Many people make the mistake of looking online or watching TV and trying to copy all the wonderful ideas they see there. The problem with this is they often have a variety of diverse ideas and can’t piece them together in a way that adds appeal and value to the house.
A better way to approach the renovation is to ask yourself what outcome you want. If you’re renovating to sell, your outcome should be that you want it to appeal to your target market so spend some time defining who that is.
Analyse your suburb and your property to see who it would appeal to.
Do a lot of young families settle there? Is it handy for families with teenagers because it’s close to local high schools? Is it attractive to single people without kids because it’s close to the city? Is it a quiet suburb, close to shops and public transport? Would it suit retirees?
You might find your suburb and property would appeal to more than one group.
What is the effect that you are trying to achieve?
Once you’ve defined your target group, think about how you can renovate to make your property more appealing to them.
If they’re a young family, having secure fencing might be important. If your target group is retirees, having a flat, even lawn and a nice, easy-care garden might be attractive.
Examine your renovation ideas.
Are the things you want to renovate ones that will make a difference to your target audience? Or are they things that would make it more appealing to you?
Sometimes they’re not the same thing, so ensure you are renovating with your target audience in mind rather than as if you were going to live there yourself.
How much do you want to spend?
It’s tempting to plunge straight into your renovation, especially when you have wonderful ideas about what you want to do.
However, it pays to stop and do some solid research on costs first.
It’s no good finding out halfway through the renovation that what you thought would cost $10,000 is actually going to cost closer to $30,000.
Whatever you intend on spending, ask yourself if you will make that money back on the sale of the property.
When daydreaming about your perfect home, what kind of images come to mind? Is it a house worthy of a magazine spread? Or is it something a little more homely where friends and family feel comfortable?
In my experience, most people are happier living in a house that feels good to them. They want somewhere that feels like their sanctuary, a place to relax and unwind after a busy day at the grindstone.
At one end of the “minimalism” scale, there are the designer houses that technically look great, but feel sterile and lack personality and heart. At the other end of the scale, there are the houses that look almost too homely and uncared for.
A good rule of thumb is to aim for somewhere in the middle. Ideally, you’ll end up with a home that’s a true reflection of you and your personality and it will have a good amount of character blended with modern, functional, beautiful design. Not too busy, not too minimalist.
The style of your home will come in to play too and it’s essential to consider the aesthetic of the house when choosing materials, colours and products for your renovation.
The two main elements for a well-designed home are the layout and the finishes and colours. Both need to be considered equally as one without the other will give you a half-baked result.
The layout
The most important thing to consider is how you plan to use the space. Before you go pulling walls out, think about where you will place your appliances and furniture. How open plan would you like the house to be, and will this work in practical terms when your family is living in it?
I’ve seen so many people pull out too many walls – meaning they didn’t have enough wall space for even a TV unless it sat in front of a window.
Consider whether the current layouts work or could you make some minor changes to the spaces for dramatic improvement to the flow and feel of your home?
The finishes/colours
The trick is getting the design and layout right first, and then using the right combination of products, colours and finishes to enhance the space. Everything weighs in on it – the colours, the materials, the textures, the furniture, the window dressings, and every other little thing that makes up the renovation, right down to the choice of fixtures and fittings.
Keep in mind that you are not just going for a particular “look”, you are also going for a “feel”.
Are all your choices – colour, materials, layout – likely to be interpreted the way you want them to be? Will the combined effect produce the feeling you are after?
A great renovation requires what I call “layering”. You’re layering the colours, finishes and textures over the top of the layout. Then you’re adding in the smaller details of the renovation to pull everything together.
Remember, it doesn’t matter how beautiful a home looks, if it doesn’t feel nice to be in, you’ve probably missed the mark.
The beginning of a new year is commonly known for personal resolutions like to get fit, start a business or be more spontaneous (that’s always my one!).
Since our homes have such an effect on how we feel, a New Year’s resolution for your home should be on the list this year.
Light, bright and airy spaces are great for mental clarity, so giving your home a new lease on life in the new year could have an incredibly positive impact on not only you but your visitors as well.
A fresh new feel might come from tidying or spring cleaning your home, tending to maintenance issues or perhaps a partial or full-on renovation.
Start with the easy things first:
- What unused items can you throw away that will give you more space?
- What rooms or areas need to be tidied in order to remove the cluttered, busy look in your home?
- What items need maintaining? Maintenance is imperative in order to eliminate future problems in your home. Make these a priority.
If your home needs more than a clean and tidy, it’s a great idea to break down exactly what you want to do room by room. This also tends to make the project feel less overwhelming and more manageable.
For each room, what do you want to achieve?
Could a paint job give it a lift? It’ll not only look better, but really help you enjoy your home more.
What about floors? They often (especially in larger spaces) have more of an impact on a home than walls, so consider if this is one area that you could improve.
Kitchens and bathrooms are areas of the home that can have a drastic impact on how you feel. Do you want open plan but don’t currently have it? Is the cabinetry tired and out-of-date? Is it dark and you want it to be light?
Imagine the effect on you and your family’s well-being of coming home to a house that is lighter, brighter, cleaner and feels more spacious.
I firmly believe that great colours, products, layout and lighting in a home have a significantly positive effect on one’s mental/emotional health and general happiness.
But realise that not all home improvements will have a positive effect. Incorrect furniture placements or bad layouts can have the opposite effect, just as choosing the wrong wall or floor colours can.
Colours/finishes selections and layouts should be based on what’s best for your home, not on other homes you’ve seen online, at show homes, in magazines and so on. Every home reacts differently to different concepts and colours.
There are millions of images online and hundreds of options of what you could do for your home, so before you get started make a plan of what you’re going to do and if/how you’re going to do it.
Hopefully it won’t take until next year to get it all done!
