The One Thing that will transform your home’s facade more than anything else

Article

If I were to survey a group of renovators and ask them what they thought was the best way to transform their home’s façade, chances are I would get a range of responses including repainting, re-cladding, rendering, fencing, landscaping, or updating driveways and pathways.

All of these are effective and will go a long way towards modernising a tired house exterior. However, I believe there’s one key change that will improve many house façades more than anything else.

It’s a change that often isn’t even considered; dismissed as being too costly or difficult.  Can you guess what it is?

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… a tweak to the roofline (stay with me here!).

Now, you may be thinking that adjustments to your roof are too difficult or out of your budget, but that is usually not true. I’m not talking about replacing your entire roof; I’m talking about minor tweaks or additions to your existing roof-line that can completely change the look and feel of your home’s facade.

As a specialist façade designer, this is one of the ways I help home owners transform their facades. About 1/3rd of the renovation designs we’ve done for clients in the past year have incorporated a modification to the roof-line. It really helps to achieve a contemporary look!

Making clever changes gives your home visual interest by providing a better focal point, and adding depth and contrast to the house. Unfortunately, it’s the one crucial element that’s missing from most DIY home renovations.

Take a look at the roof on most 60’s, 70’s and 80’s homes. Now compare those roofs to newer home roofs. You’ll see that instead of a simple roofline without any other features, the more modern homes often have varying roof heights and directions.

If you can make even a small adjustment to your roofline, it will transform your home. This might be a portico roof or some sort of structure over the entry point. Just make sure that whatever you do links with the rest of your renovation so that everything has coherence and style.

You can see in the before and after photos above, where we created a walkway to the entrance by adding a skillion roof to the new carport that will fly over to the older roof on the house. The end result will completely transform and modernise this façade.

Imagine if we’d kept the roofline the same as what it was.

Tweaking your home’s roof is not the only way to update the look, but it is one of the most effective ways to complete a renovation and if done well, always results in giving the house a far more striking and stylish presentation without massive costs.

Jane Eyles-Bennett is one of Australia’s top exterior designers and owner of design firm Hotspace ConsultantsJoin Jane in her Facebook group Home Renovators Network Australia for design and renovation inspiration and insider tips for your home improvement projects.