Three easy ways to instantly update your curb appeal

Making your house a home doesn’t just apply to what’s inside, your curb appeal is just as important.

Before we even moved into our new home, I already had updating the outside of our home on the top of our list.

White house with a three car garage to the left of the house. Two black side by side front doors are to the right of the photo. There is a palm tree sitting just in front of the house. — While I loved our new house, I have big plans for the outside.

The only thing we had a say concerning the exterior non structural aspects of our home, was the main house color and the color of the trim.

The roof color, the types of landscaping plants, house numbers, and exterior lighting was already picked per the neighborhood development plan included in the price of the home.

**This post contains affiliate links for various brands including Amazon, which does not cost you anything extra, but helps me earn a small commission that keeps my business grow. Click here for my complete disclosure.

SIDE NOTE: If you chose to go with a different builder, or even build a custom home, you may have more say in regards to your home design choices. This is just in regards to our experience with our builder.

Not only does changing your curb appeal give your personal touch, but it also sets your home apart from the other houses in your neighborhood.

Three Easy Ways to Instantly Update Your Curb Appeal

1. House numbers

I wasn’t a big fan of the house numbers on our home for a number of reasons.

Not only did I not like the style, but the size was the part that bothered me the most.

Courtney taping a larger number six on the left side of the photo next to a black barn light and a smaller set of house numbers. — Such a drastic change from the small house numbers to the bigger, more aesthetically pleasing house numbers.

Our house sits pretty far back on our property with a long driveway and the house numbers were really tiny to see from the street.

I felt that the house numbers being too small not only would make it hard for anyone trying to find our home, but also posed a safety issue should we have any sort of emergency.

I found the most perfect house numbers on Etsy from Letter Cut after a bunch of research.

In my search I also found this style which I thought was super adorable and the shop on Etsy also carried this style as well.

2. Mulch

Living in South Carolina, pine straw is a popular option.

On one hand it is less expensive, but it’s also a crowd favorite to palmetto bugs (see: large roaches…aka the state bird of the south next to the mosquito) and snakes.

And I have no time for either one of those….. nope.

White house with black barn exterior lights on the left. On the right of the photo is a pathway lined with black mulch to double front doors with two black rocking chairs on either side. — The black mulch, the new house numbers, and the updated outdoor lighting gives new life to this house.

We dug the pine straw out, but don’t worry we added it to the forest next to us where the builder had also laid down a fair amount of pine straw.

We opted for black mulch which I feel really pops next to our white house.

SIDE NOTE: Since it was our first installation of mulch and needed a lot, we opted to have it sprayed in instead of doing it ourselves. Since it’s hard to control those hoses when the mulch is being shot out, we had black dye on the bottom part of our house. Thankfully the company brought a power washer who worked his magic and got the dye off of the house. And we will not have it sprayed again every in our lives of mulching, thank you for attending my TEDTalk.

3. Exterior lighting

I really don’t know where the builder sourced their outdoor lights, but I’m going to guess they got a really good bulk rate discount.

Me on a ladder with a medical boot on my left foot hanging a light on the back of the house. — Even in a boot, I wanted to jump in on this task.

Keeping with the modern farmhouse theme I found these amazing barn lights from Amazon.

What really drew me to these barn lights was the gold accent on the inside which I thought would reflect the warm glow at night.

Black barn light lit at night on the side of the white house. Under the light is a green bush. — I love the warm glow from the new lights.

There you have it, three easy ways to instantly update your curb appeal.

I loved our home before, but these three changes really made this home truly feel like ours.

Definitely check with your neighborhood policies as we had a Home Owner’s Association (HOA) we needed approval for two of the three changes.

It’s crazy how just changing the house numbers, the exterior lighting, and the mulch gave the house such a drastic and more appealing change.

Plans for the future

Now that we’re closing into the first full year and after all the seasons, we have more things to freshen up outdoors.

In case you didn’t notice, the palm tree in front of our home died over the last couple of months.

We’ve been in contact with the builder who will be replacing the palm tree this spring.

Cannot wait to show you what we have up our sleeves this upcoming year.

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Three easy ways to instantly update your curb appeal

Making your house a home doesn’t just apply to what’s inside, your curb appeal is just as important.

SIDE NOTE: If you chose to go with a different builder, or even build a custom home, you may have more say in regards to your home design choices. This is just in regards to our experience with our builder.

Not only does changing your curb appeal give your personal touch, but it also sets your home apart from the other houses in your neighborhood.