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Front Porch Refresh on a Budget

Hey there friends! We are headed outside for today’s blog post.

A couple of weeks ago I found some old episodes of the show “Curb Appeal” from HGTV and I binged-watched them as it was actually filmed in the Atlanta area and it was one show I really enjoyed back in the day. Each episode featured one large $20,000 makeover on a home and two other smaller makeovers in the same neighborhood.

It was a nice breakaway from all of the home improvement shows that focused on the interiors of homes. Do you remember that show?

Anyways, it reminded me of everything we did to the front of our last house before we listed it for sale. By the time we got to address this part of the house we had a little bit left in our budget and we had to do the best we could. So we had to focus on the most cost effective changes that would give us the biggest bang for our buck.

Let’s see what we were working with. Below is a picture of the listing of the house when we purchased it. It wasn’t the cutest house in the world, but I knew it had potential.

However, since the inside of the house was so bad and we had to renovate so much, the front was left unattended for most of the time we lived there.

SOME OF THE FOLLOWING LINKS ARE AFFILIATE LINKS. PLEASE SEE FULL DISCLOSURE FOR COMPLETE DETAILS*

This is pretty embarrassing to share, but it’s the truth. It got pretty bad.

Since our house was usually “under construction” we never really had anyone come over except for my parents so the front of our house was just not a priority.

This is a winter picture so everything was well…. dead.

I had a couple of planters and some mismatched outdoor furniture.

It just wasn’t welcoming at all and it honestly did not reflect all of the hard work and charm we had added to the inside of the house. So there was a huge disconnect.

The lighting was outdated and the shutters were a dingy yellow-y beige color. The bricks and steps were pretty dirty as well.

Everything was really lackluster. So I put together a list of the things we should tackle in order to make the front look as pretty and inviting as possible.

I had always thought I would paint the brick on this house white if we managed to stay in it forever since I loved the brick, but was not a fan of its orange color at all. However, that was definitely out of the question for us at this point.

So here is what I came up with:

Pressure wash the front porch, steps, brick and driveway to clean things up.
Paint the shutters and garage door white for a fresh look
Change out the light fixture
Plant new bushes and add mulch
Add annuals to the planters
2 new rocking chairs and cushions
Landscape lighting
New wreath for the front door

We decided to add a small hedge of boxwoods on the front to keep it nice and clean. It was suggested by one of the realtors we had interviewed and honestly were surprised at how good it looked.

Next my dad came up with his heavy duty pressure washer and cleaned the entire porch, driveway, sidewalks and steps. This made such an impact.

The bricks looked brand new once he was done.

We added mulch all over the front porch planter box and we decided to go with black mulch since there was so much orange brick. It was a nice contrast.

Nelson replaced the light fixture with something more substantial and I painted all of the shutters white. We also painted the garage door to match.

I cleaned up the planters and added annuals.

I added some solar powered landscape lighting to the front boxwood area as well.

I replaced the front porch furniture with 2 white rocking chairs and added cushions to the front sitting area. This really brightened the front and added a new color.

It made everything look so fresh and clean. The blue cushions popped in front of the white chairs and orange brick.

I made a new wreath and added it to the front door as well. I had already painted the door a light blue the year before so I didn’t have to do anything to it.

I think everything turned out really well and really did a lot to improve the appearance of the front of the house. The green boxwoods looked so good in front of the bricks.

The flowers added a nice touch of color to both sides of the porch.

I also added a little table and some candles between the chairs to keep the bugs away while we enjoyed sitting in the front.

And here is what the entire area looked like from afar.

I kept everything simple and I was so happy to go with white for the shutters.

I honestly wished I had done this sooner. The front finally looked put together and it no longer looked like a hobo house.

I loved seeing the charming potential finally shine through. And while it wasn’t a complete change of the exterior, all of the smaller changes made a huge impact and created such an inviting space.

What do you think of everything we did?

If you have been thinking about upgrading the look of the front of your house, just know it doesn’t have to be a complete and costly makeover. You just need to implement a few changes that will give the most impact.

Don’t forget the power of pressure washing either. Sometimes a good clean goes a long way (as it did for us).