Increasing your home’s curb appeal can significantly increase its value – and your enjoyment of it. But all investments first require that you put in the cash to reap the return. Everyone would have the home of their dreams with the right financial backing, but most of us live on a budget. Fortunately, these curb appeal ideas can help you improve your home even when you are on a tighter budget.

What is Curb Appeal?

“Curb appeal” is a term you’ll hear a lot when talking about real estate. Simply put, curb appeal is the attractiveness of a property when looking at it from the outside. When you drive by a home and see beautiful landscaping, well-placed accent lighting, border walls, and other elements and your response is “oooh!” – that’s curb appeal. When your home has it, people see it as more valuable. If you are thinking of selling your home in the next few months or few years, increasing its curb appeal can help you get a much higher selling price. But if you also just want to experience that “ooh!” feeling for yourself every time you pull up in your driveway – or you want your guests to experience it when they come to visit – increasing your home’s curb appeal has the same value

Here are a few things you can do to instantly increase your home’s curb appeal on a budget:

1. Use Outdoor Lighting

Well-placed outdoor lighting can highlight key elements of your home and your landscape, literally spotlighting its best qualities. Lighting can be added anywhere with very little effort, either by adding stake lights to the landscaping or mounting lighting in key locations. For a more comprehensive design, you can work with a hardscaping expert from Triad Associates to wire lighting into retaining walls, border areas, columns, steps, and more.

2. Dig a Relaxing Pond

You don’t have to buy waterfront property to enjoy the benefits of sitting by the water’s edge and relaxing in nature. You can add your own pond to your property. A small pond can create a scenic vista on your property, and it can give you a quiet oasis to spend quiet hours. You can dress it up with beautiful rock formations, plants, and even colorful fish.

3. Elevate Your Landscaping

You may have beautiful landscaping around your property, but there may be ways you can elevate it to make it do even more. Work with one of the hardscaping experts at Triad Associates to add elements like decorative garden bed walls, accent rocks, and gravel pathways. Add lighting or water features and you’ll have something spectacular.

4. Add a Simple Fountain

Water features always improve a landscape or hardscape. If you don’t want to put in something as large as a pond, consider a simple fountain. You’ll get many of the same benefits – a beautiful focal piece, a quiet place to relax – without the same expense and without the same footprint. You can choose from many different designs to get the right look, and you can adorn the fountain with elements like rock borders, pavers, and more.

5. Landscape for Curb Appeal

Landscaping is like the green welcome mat for your property. You can do so much more than a green lawn and a few scattered bushes. Work with a designer to find ways to add a variety of evergreen and ornamental bushes, grasses, and flowers that will make your landscape look great all year long.

6. Add a Minimalistic Curb

There are likely many areas of your property that have minor changes in elevation. Adding a minimalistic curb can set these areas apart, giving them a defined border while also helping to manage erosion and runoff. You can add these curbs to planted areas, raised areas along your driveway or walkways, the area around your entryway, or even the space around your mailbox.

7. Incorporate River Rock

River rock is a smooth, decorative stone that can be used creatively in hardscaping and landscaping. It comes in a variety of colors, sizes, and combinations to meet the needs of your design. Work with one of our hardscaping designers to determine how it might look best in your property. You may add it as a border to walkways, a defined area around gardens or other planted beds, as a buffer between a pool deck and retaining wall or planted area, and more. River rock can be both decorative and functional, helping to manage erosion and runoff.

8. Implement Natural Stone

Natural stone is an excellent choice for updating your property’s curb appeal. Large boulders can be used strategically through bushes and ornamental grasses or flowers, or they can be used to build natural retaining walls. They can also be used to accent garden ponds. Small stones can be used ornamentally throughout your landscaping or to accent hardscaping elements, such as stones by a fountain.

9. Elevate Your Curb Appeal with Plants

Landscape design is truly a work of art, and working with the right designer can help you elevate your property’s curb appeal. Consider how your hardscaping and landscaping are working together, adding plants strategically along elements such as a driveway or border wall. Consider combinations of plant types, sizes, colors, and more. You can plant shrubs, grasses, and flowers directly in beds or along pathways, or you can use containers to give yourself some flexibility in the design over time.

10. Use Established Trees

Mature trees can make a property look stately and beautiful. Design hardscaping elements around established trees to highlight them and increase your property’s curb appeal. Wind pathways through the trees, build decorative borders around them, or add lighting to highlight them. If you don’t have established trees, or you don’t have them in the needed places, hire a landscaper to plant mature trees where you want them. Always balance hardscaping and landscaping elements to get the right look.

11. Establish a Natural Look

Hardscaping can look very slick and polished if you want a modern aesthetic. But a large variety of materials are available, giving you options to create a natural look that is timeless. Flagstone, gravel, and sand can all be used to create natural paths or sitting areas. Accents like natural stone, mature plantings, and water features can make the space look like a natural formation. You can make it look like your house was built in the middle of a rustic oasis, creating a charming look while also giving you a wonderful place to relax and entertain.

12. Add Beautiful Plants to Your Sidewalk

The sidewalk leading up to your home is one of the most important places to make an impression. Not only does it greet your guests when they approach your home, but it is also a sight line that draws the immediate attention of anyone assessing your property. You should ensure that good hardscaping is used to create the sidewalk – and if not, upgrade it. Then you should accent the sidewalk with beautiful plants that will look great all year. Choose perennial flowers that will bloom each spring, and intersperse them with ornamental grasses and evergreen plants that will create a gorgeous, living border. 

13. Promote Consistency

As in all areas of home design, consistency is key to success. The elements do not all need to look the same, but they should work in harmony to achieve a cohesive design vision. Consider elements like color, texture, and size in your materials, and think about how they can be used together to create balance. For instance, you may plant a row of hedges or flowering shrubs along a border wall to give it an extra pop, and you may line the base of the wall with gravel or small stone in a complementary color and add spot lighting for effect. All the details should be working together for maximum impact.

Working with a hardscaping designer can help you explore all your options and better understand how the elements work together. A good designer will help you visualize the design with tools like samples, sketches, and 3D software.

Hire Triad Associates’ Design Experts Today

The hardscaping experts at Triad Associates have been helping property owners throughout the Haverhill area elevate the curb appeal of their homes and businesses for decades, and they are ready to help you realize the full potential of your space. We work closely with property owners to understand what they need and help them explore options to realize their vision on the budget they have determined. 

Call us today to schedule a consultation and learn what steps you can take to immediately increase the curb appeal – and the value – of your property. One of our designers will perform a site evaluation and will talk with you about what you hope to accomplish. We can offer expert suggestions and curb appeal ideas about what will look best on your property while also helping you to get the most out of your investment. Call us today to get started! We’re ready to help you transform your property.