Renovation Ideas for the Exterior of Your House - Winter Is Coming

People usually care about the look of the interior of their house and it is interior design that they have in mind when someone mentions renovations. This is very typical, since people care mostly about their immediate surroundings. The exterior is often less important, because let’s face it, we barely even look at it. But we all have to agree that the outside of our house still deserves to be cared for, particularly because the winter holidays are getting nearer are nearer and everything has to be perfect for Christmas.

The exterior may be “unappreciated”, but it has to be renovated if it hasn’t been for a long time. Most people realize this sooner or later. You should know that it’s never too soon to start thinking about some maintenance work. Renovating will help save your home from deteriorating, particularly during harsh winter conditions, as well as make it look more appealing for the upcoming holiday season.

Now, off to the actual ideas…

When you start thinking about changing the exterior, don’t go off to bigger projects right at the start; think about something simple like a paint job for starters. A house can often have a bad outside look because the material on the outside loses its starting beauty over time because of pollution and/or oxidation. This is a problem for most people since most first world countries have a lot of pollution. This can be fixed easily, but it still involves some hard work. Some varnishing and a fresh coat of paint will often be all that is needed to make a house look like new. Create a checklist and inspect your home top to bottom. Be sure to have some professionals come round the house if you have major issues that need to be resolved and be sure to inspect the items in your tool shed before starting any serious work.

Decorating the garden

Adding some Christmassy ornaments and statues to your garden, repainting the fence, putting a beautiful wreath on the front door and putting up some colorful Christmas lights around the house are just a few things that can be relatively inexpensive to do, but will make your home look really nice. Mowing the lawn and putting some small decorations along the paved path to your front door is a very nice way to welcome guests, and a jolly snowman waving at visitors is a very welcoming sight as well. If you have a dog house in the yard, be sure to decorate it – your dog will appreciate it and it adds to the holiday spirit.

A few ideas for porch decorations

If you have a porch it can be a perfect setting for some beautiful ornaments, you can set up a couple of chairs and a table with some decorations - things like pine cones, fluffy pillows, presents and Santa figurines are very cost effective. You can also add a rug, some lanterns, a small Christmas tree or two, a sled and an inspirational sign.
Big windows that can be seen from the outside will need to be adequately decorated as well and this will tie in nicely to your interior decorating efforts. Some new curtains might be in order as well as some snowflake stickers.

Some safe equipment is necessary for this type of project

Besides the tools you know you are going to use, you need to think about some items which will keep you safe while working on your home. And when it comes to exterior renovations you will need a decent pair of boots, heavy work gloves, some eye protection and some good ladders or even things like rails and work platforms if you are doing serious maintenance work on the roof. Safe footing is very important when you are working on projects such as these. Thankfully, for work around the house you won’t need a lot of safety equipment. Having a sturdy base and a platform to stand on makes performing tasks such as putting up Christmas lights on the roof much safer and easier. You should also consider a good industrial lifting belt to keep your back safe if you are going to be doing a lot of heavy lifting.

All of this is of course a suggestion, but it is always better to be on the safe side. You don’t want to get injured while you are trying to give your house a better look.

I hope that these ideas will prove to be useful and that this will actually get you to start thinking about remodeling the exterior of your home, if you haven’t already.