Kerb appeal: spruce up your front garden

The warmer weather here in the UK means that I’ve been cracking on with projects outside, one of which was a much-needed spruce-up of my home’s kerb appeal! Improving your home’s kerb appeal is particularly important if you’re trying to sell or rent a property as first impressions will make or break the deal!

But improving your home’s kerb appeal shouldn’t be ignored if you’re not planning on moving either. Keeping your home’s frontage neat and tidy shows you have pride in your home and your community. It can improve the look and feel of your street by keeping grass mown, hedges trimmed and weeds at bay. And giving your home’s Kerb appeal some attention can make your house a pleasure to come home to for yourself and your guests.

How far you can go with your kerb appeal depends on several factors such as your budget, space and neighbouring properties. I’ve blogged before about painting your front door and adding some stylish door furniture. Unfortunately I have a UPVC front door which I can’t afford to replace at the moment so I had to improve my own home’s kerb appeal in another way…
This is a photo of my home when I first bought it over five years ago. The strip of grass between my home and the pavement was sold by the council to a developer who went bust, so no one is sure who owns it – but I’m limited to what I can do with it as it’s not my land. So I bought two 1.2 meter wooden garden planters from eBay (£33 with delivery), they came as a pair but they weren’t expensive so I’ll use the other one somewhere else! I also bought some Farrow & Ball exterior eggshell in pigeon (£23.99 for 750 ml) to add a little colour to my planter.
I used some white emulsion that I had in the shed to do a rough first coat – Farrow & Ball paint isn’t cheap and I didn’t want it to sink into the wood. I then did another two coats in Pigeon and voila!

I bought six bags of cotswold stone from Homebase, removed the grass and lined the ground with plastic sheeting. This stop weeds from coming through the stones and stops the stones from sinking into the ground too. I think the cotswold stone really freshens up the kerb appeal and will make the borders much easier to maintain in the future. If you’re looking to buy cotswold stone (or other decorative aggregate) in bulk, I’d recommend taking a look at Hallstone Direct.

I added three hydrangea plants for some colour as well as a Mia Fleur bird on a ball garden ornament for some character. I’m hoping that the hydrangeas will grow quickly to hide some of those ugly cables running across the wall.

It’s not a huge transformation, but it’s enough to smarten up the front of my home. Plus, it only took one day’s work and cost under £100 so I’m pretty pleased with it!

The next job is to touch-up the exterior walls as the grass and weeds left some stains behind. Maybe next weekend’s job…

Natalia xo