Rendering is the go-to for most people when they’re renovating their brick home. But, depending on your budget and the architectural style of your home, it’s not always the best solution.
If you render an older style home and do nothing else to it, it will look exactly like an older style home that has just been rendered and nothing more.
New, rendered homes – or well-renovated, older style brick homes – have additional design elements that make them look modern. The doors, windows and roof, can reveal the true age of the house if not dealt with properly.
So, what do you do? Well, you could replace these as well as render, but other possibilities can give your home a fresh new look without spending too much.
Repainting
You could revitalise the exterior by painting the trims, gutters, fascia and bargeboards of your home in a contemporary, stylish colour. If your bricks are light to mid-coloured, I advise you go for a much darker colour. If your bricks are darker, aim for contrast by using a lighter colour – but, not white.
You can also update the front door by painting it to match the trims, or you could replace it altogether. A popular option is to paint it in a contrasting colour so that it becomes a focal point.
Landscaping
A brick house will always appear visually heavier than a timber house, so landscaping is an excellent way to soften and balance its appearance. You don’t need extensive landscaping; just choose a few areas around the base of the house or the entryway to plant densely so that the house appears anchored in place.
A great tip when choosing plants for the landscaping is to take a good look at the foliage. Plants that are too dainty and thin will only accentuate the heaviness of the brick, so choose plants with thicker stems and rounded leaves in a range of colours that contrast with the colour of your brick.
Window dressing
Often overlooked is the effect the interior window dressing can have on the appearance of the exterior. Streamlined and linear slatted blinds are good; big blocks of curtains are not.
Fencing
Updating your fence will always help refresh and revitalise your property. If you don’t have a fence, it’s worth looking at the cost of erecting one. It defines a property and will help break up the appearance of all that brick. Ensure the colours and materials you use in your fence visually link to your house, so there is a sense of cohesion. If you can get hold of some bricks that match your un-rendered home, this is an excellent way to make the fence look like it’s always been there and not an add-on.
Repaint, revamp or replace
Finally, take a good look at things like awnings, porticos and porches. Is there anything that could benefit from being repainted, revamped, replaced or even removed? The colour and style of these elements – especially on the facade of your home – can make or break the final look.
Don’t all those renovation makeovers on TV look great? They make it look so simple too, don’t they?
I mean, it seems like all you need to do is give your interior a lick of paint, rearrange your furniture, update a few items and your home will look all shiny and new again.
If you have a good sense of design and you’ve done your research, you might be able to achieve a fantastic makeover like that, but what about the exterior? That’s where things can get a bit tricky.
I work with home owners from all over Australia and the most common thing people come to me for is help with their facade.
While home renovation shows have given home owners more confidence when renovating their home interiors, there’s still a huge lack of inspiration for exterior renovations – in particular, the facades of 1970s and 1980s homes.
Most of these homes need more than a basic makeover (render, paint and landscaping) to really modernise them.
The problem is that many renovators don’t know what other options and materials are available, and they lack the experience to successfully work in new cosmetic or minor structural elements in a way that suits the style of their home.
Short of going to an architect, which many home owners are reluctant to do because of the expense, renovators are often left to go it alone.
So, how to find a good balance between the two?
If you want to change the look of your home’s facade, there are other things you can (and need to) do to create a much bigger impact than a paint job and a bit of landscaping.
Start with gathering some images of home facades you love the look of.
Perhaps you can’t imagine how the design concepts, colours and materials on these houses could be adapted for your home right now. But often they can.
The trick is to blend what you love, with what you have. Respect the architectural style of your home at the same time as modernising it.
It sounds like a simple concept, but it can be difficult to create a look that works in reality. Take your time to work through your options.
Depending on the property, you might be able to make some minor alterations to the roofline, add a new porch or some feature cladding, change the entrance, erect a new fence, do some different landscaping, add a driveway or carport, or makeover the garage doors.
If your home is boxy or flat looking, investigate ways to give it some dimension.
If it’s brick and you want to render it, look at ways to introduce contrasting materials and features to give it some interest and depth. If your home has arches, find ways to either remove them or conceal them in some way.
There are hundreds of ways to improve a facade over and above a paint job and landscaping; you just have to work out which ones to employ for your home.
My advice is to seek the help of a professional. Let’s face it, if you’re going to spend anywhere from $50,000 – $80,000 or more on your exterior, you really should be doing your best to ensure your plan is going to work.
A good designer will help you find a happy medium between what you have, the kind of look you want and what your budget will allow for.
And with fees for design concepts typically around 5 to 6 per cent of the renovation budget, the cost is certainly affordable.
If you’ve been watching The Block over the past few months, chances are you’ve got the urge to give your home a bit of a makeover.
While it’s tempting to jump in and start renovating, there is one golden rule you need to be aware of: know your costs before you start. If you begin your renovation by just estimating costs, it will be a recipe for disaster. Almost inevitably, your money will run out well before the renovation is finished.
I recently helped a client who was heading for this scenario. He had bought a property and assumed he could renovate it for $30,000-$40,000. With that budget in mind, he expected to have the interior and exterior painted, put in a new basic kitchen, fix up the bathroom and replace the flooring.
Thankfully, he decided to get some advice before starting, and my builder and I went to the property to take a look. As experts in our respective fields, we were able to do a realistic estimate of costs there and then, foresee potential problems and take into account the knock-on effect (and its associated costs) of each area of renovation.
It didn’t take long to work out that, given the state and size of the house, even a very basic renovation would cost closer to $60,000 or $65,000. Painting and prep for the weather-beaten exterior would be $15,000 to $18,000 alone. That’s half his original budget.
What a nightmare it would have been if the client had just put basic figures together, and then jumped straight into the renovation before realising they were too low.
Here’s the advice we gave to this client:
- Refocus the available funds
- Don’t spread your dollar too thinly
- Start with your number one area and go from there
In this case, it made the most sense to focus on the kitchen and living area because this would make best use of the available funds while creating the biggest impact.
Whatever area you decide to focus on, it’s essential that you know what your real costs are before you begin. Don’t assume the estimate you have come up with is correct if this is not something you do regularly.
Budgets aren’t only blown out by expensive product choices, they’re blown out by underestimating the real costs of your completed renovation.
Unfortunately, it’s all too common for people to think they don’t need help with their renovation. But by jumping in head first without taking the time to get accurate costs and sound renovation advice from a renovation expert, you’ll usually over-spend on what would have been that expert’s fee.
When you’re giving the exterior of your house a makeover, the go-to for most people is a fresh coat of paint. That’s a fantastic first step, but it’s precisely that: a first step. It’s certainly not the way to transform your home.
Painting your house and leaving it at that is like putting on a new cardigan but neglecting to change your shirt or add accessories. Just as you would update your outfit with nice cufflinks or to-die-for shoes, so you should consider changing other aspects of your exterior and not just your colour scheme.
While the colour of your home is important, it’s only 50 per cent of the equation. The remaining 50 per cent relies on well-balanced, cohesive features and fixtures that work with the original style of your home — instead of against it.
1. Add or update your fence
Take a look at your home with fresh eyes. What does the fence look like and can you update it? Does it need a coat of paint? Does it need replacing or repairing? Can it be altered or modernised in some way to better link to the architectural style of your home? Fences define a property, so if you don’t have one, you might consider installing one if the budget allows.
2. Change your entryway
Now turn your attention to the house itself. One way to modernise the look (over and above a paint job) is to add a fabulous entry feature that draws the eye to your entrance. You could do something as complex as an entry portico or as simple as a selection of beautiful plants near the entrance or pot plants positioned by the front door.
3. Landscape your front garden
And how about your landscaping? Does it suit the style and scale of your house? Larger, brick and rendered homes require chunkier and more substantial plants, whereas timber homes can get away with using a less dense species.
Ensure the features of your front facade and yard don’t make the property appear smaller than it is. I visited a client’s property recently where they had this exact problem. A hedge separated the driveway from the front yard, giving the illusion that the property was much narrower than it was.
4. Add some outdoor furniture
Redoing an outdoor living space through a change in outdoor furniture and some new landscaping features can go a long way towards improving your home’s new look and feel. If you don’t have an outdoor living space, can you create one?
5. Dress up your driveway
Your driveway is another area that may benefit from a bit of attention. These can be expensive to repair, so clever landscaping to draw attention away from a dated or damaged driveway can be a great short-term fix.
With open-plan living being popular today, many renovators are eager to knock down walls willy-nilly. But, there are a few things to keep in mind when you are trying to create a more open design.
Too few walls
The most common mistake I see is when homeowners are so enthusiastic about open-plan living that they have not left enough walls. Of course, you have to ensure your design is viable structurally, but that’s not the only reason to leave walls in.
You also have to think about furniture placement. If you’ve got too many windows in the design and not enough wall space, you can have problems with how you layout your furniture, fixtures and fittings.
To avoid making this mistake, it’s a good idea to draw up the shell of the house with all the walls in it. Then draw it up again minus the walls you want to eliminate. Block in your furniture and fixtures, making allowances for wiring and power points
Bad furniture placement
If there isn’t a lot of wall space, make the most of what you have by placing some furniture centred in the room. But, you can’t just plonk furniture anywhere and hope it’s going to work. Each of the individual spaces that form the open-plan area need to be anchored.
For example, if you put a dining table and chairs in an open dining room with nothing to anchor it, it will feel a bit like it doesn’t belong, or that you’re not sure where the dining area ends and the kitchen or lounge begins.
Forgetting to anchor
Anchoring defines each space without detracting from the open-plan look, feel and flow. In the dining room, you can achieve this by hanging a pendant light over the top of the table and adding a decorative feature on top of the table.
Another option to help define the space is to place a rug under the table, but this is not always practical if you have small children. Whatever you choose to do, a good rule of thumb is to aim for two out of the three suggestions here.
In the living area, you can use a rug to anchor the lounge furniture and, if you have a coffee table in the middle, you can put a decorative feature on top of that. This will help create a focal point in the centre of the area.
The kitchen needs less anchoring because it is such a solid entity in its own right, but you can define the space from the rest of the open-plan area through the use of lighting. Not only do pendant lights over the breakfast bar look great, but it gives a line to say here’s the kitchen and there’s the dining room.
Many people planning their renovation begin by gathering pictures from Pinterest and other online resources and from family, friends and neighbours.
While this is a great way to get design ideas, it can also be the perfect way to make your home look like mutton dressed as lamb.
I recently helped some clients with this exact issue. They were about to renovate their bathroom and kitchen and had shown me photos of a renovation their friend had done. They loved the renovation and wanted a similar result.
The friend’s apartment was built in the 1960s or 1970s, and she had done a beautiful job renovating it in a way that perfectly suited the architectural style of her apartment block.
My clients, however, own a Victorian terrace house, so copying their friend’s design was never going to work for their style of house.
One of the key design concepts you should always consider when renovating your home, is to take the original style of the house into account.
This doesn’t mean that if you have an 1980s-style house that you have to renovate it to match the 1980s. What it does mean is that you modernise the majority of the spaces with contemporary colours and materials while subtly linking back to some of the design choices of the era of the house.
It’s essential to the longevity of your renovation to consider the era and style of your home. If you do a super-slick modern bathroom or kitchen in a house that doesn’t have a super-slick and modern style in its bones, it won’t work well design-wise.
It’ll probably look great in the short term, but down the track you will find it stands out because it doesn’t gel with the style of house. You want it to be modern, but also have a “nod” towards the architectural style of the house.
With my client’s house, I ended up using a Victorian-style patterned floor tile and heritage-style light fittings, then juxtaposed these with modern wall tiles, vanity, shower, bath, mirror and accessories. The overall look is modern but there is still a link to the heritage of the home.
No matter what style of home you have, you can avoid the mutton-dressed-as-lamb problem by following this one simple rule.
Have a look at the photos in my Facebook group and you’ll see that I’m creating a contemporary look, but also injecting some of the flavour of the architectural style of the house at the same time.
