Seven simple ways to give your home a facelift

We all look a little tired after a while. Eyelids droop, the color drains from our face and we feel like we need a pick-me-up.

Your home is no different: after a few years without attention, the facade it presents to the world looks worn and dowdy. It needs a revamp.

But don’t panic.

We’re not talking about rebuilding everything: just a few nips and tucks so your home can look like a million dollars on a pauper’s budget.

So here are seven ways to spruce up your home’s exterior while keeping costs down.

1. Window boxes

Choose your plants carefully and you can pop color under your windows all year round.

Walk the shelves of cheap plastic boxes in Wickes and look for wood, stone or decorative ironwork.

The arched metal planter Anaia from La Redoute Interieurs is a discreet little thing that blends into the background to showcase the flowers. Available for £11.20 at laredoute.co.uk.

Or if you want to splash out, the Lichfield Planter Company’s red pine planter box in Farrow & Ball ‘pigeon’ paint costs £210, from thelichfieldplantercompany.co.uk.

2. New windows

Eye-catching windows make all the difference to the facade of your home. Cheap plastic double-glazed windows look sloppy.

So if you do need to replace it (as you will sooner or later), try good quality wooden units or at least wood effect composite – which is so realistic these days, you might need a magnifying glass to tell the difference.

Roseview wood effect sash windows are top quality (roseview.co.uk).

3. Painting

Why condemn your home to a dull, gray or red-brown life? Why not go for the bright, cheerful pastels that are common in most of the rest of the world?

You could try it yourself, but unless you live in a bungalow, it’s safer to call in a professional. Sandtex Cornish Cream paint in a pleasant buttery yellow costs £40 for ten liters from B&Q (diy.com).

Count on 1 liter for 16 m2. Remember you will probably need two coats of paint.

4. Wooden cladding

Warm, beautiful wood softens the look of a home – from log cabins to treehouses, wood feels cozy like brick never will.

The wood can be painted or plain to show off its natural grain and beauty. Softwood is cheaper but requires more treatment than hardwood, meaning the total cost is about the same.

Expect to pay in the region of £100 per square foot for the hardwood; half for softwood, without treatment.

If you want a long-lasting, low-maintenance option, go for heat-treated wood cladding for around £80 per square metre.

Red cedar is an attractive softwood option, requiring relatively little treatment and giving your home a “smooth” look.

However, for a very traditional look, nothing beats English oak. It needs little treatment if you are happy for the gold color to fade naturally, but if you want it to look young and fresh, you need to treat it from time to time.

If you are going for hardiness, heat treated woods such as Accoya, Keywood or Thor cladding are extremely durable.

5. New fence

It’s the very first thing people see when they visit, so why let your boring garden fence become a dried up row of firewood?

Spruce it up with some decent paint or replace it altogether with something more daring: rose trellises or low wooden fences.

Or you can have panels with slats that open and close like blinds, so you can opt for more light or more privacy – the Flex Fence system from Tuin (tuin.co.uk) is available for £195 for a pair of 2 .2 m black galvanized rails that form the core of the panels.

6. Large planters

There is no need to dig over your front yard if you want to add some vegetation. Four large decorative terracotta planters in the corners make it feel much more enclosed and ‘designed’.

Primrose’s Roman-style terracotta troughs are eye-catching. Available from primrose.co.uk for £150.

7. Rock or slip

Stone cladding has a pretty awful reputation, but that’s because people think the plastic stuff stuck to the outside of brick row houses looks like a monstrous experiment gone wrong.

Natural stone tiles look great on the right house. They are split from stone to give a skin of real stone over dull stones.

A similar product is a brick strip – a thin layer of real brick that can be applied to an ugly duckling’s house.

For natural stone tiles, expect to pay £100 per square foot in the region. Brick slips cost about € 50 per square meter.