Beauty is Yard Deep: How to Boost Your Curb Appeal When Selling Your Home

Curb appeal – or lack thereof – is the first thing visitors see when they pull up to your house and the last thing they see as they pull away.

These are the two most crucial moments in a potential home buyer’s experience because the first and last impressions define how they feel about a property. If that feeling is negative, all of the high-end appliances, fresh paint and other great interior upgrades are overshadowed.

We’ve all heard about how important curb appeal is, but actually dealing with it can be extremely overwhelming at a time when you’re prepping a house for market and are already working overtime to fix up interior spaces. Here, is where Borst Landscape and Design can help by focusing on specific outdoor beautifiers that won’t break the bank but will immediately attract potential buyers – making sure that the time, money, sweat and energy that you put into your beautiful interior improvements get the attention they deserve:

Clutter control: Open spaces and clean backdrops open potential buyers’ minds, making it much easier for them to envision their favorite garden features at home in your yard. Have the lawn cut, brush cleared, weeds pulled, leaves raked and all children’s toys and items such as lawn ornaments and furniture hidden from view.

Get balanced: Symmetrical placement of certain elements like light fixtures on either side of a door, or plantings along walkways and driveways, creates a welcome feeling.

Instant gardens: Container gardens can be just as pretty and inviting as the real thing –but much quicker and more affordable to create! You can purchase ready-made containers or custom order them with your favorite plants and colors.

Refresh flowerbeds: In addition to weeding, pruning and planting, any mulch that has lost its color to sunlight or harsh weather should be replaced. Stone or brick borders should also be spruced up and any broken pieces replaced.

Box it in: Installing boxes beneath windows or on fences, decks, railings or balconies is a simple yet very effective way to add dashes of color and charm to your home’s exterior. McMahon recommends consulting a professional when choosing flowers and plants that will fare best given a box’s sunlight-to-shade ratio and other factors such as its size.

Lighten up: Add mega wattage to your curb appeal with low-voltage landscape lighting. Use it to add accent lighting to trees, garden areas or the house or to illuminate a walking path, adding safety and security. If wiring such lights is not possible, look into solar fixtures.

Roll out the walkway: Think of your entrance walkway as the red carpet to your home and invite visitors to walk it. Edge existing walkways with flowers or flagstones, or consider replacing a non-descript concrete path with a contoured one made of stone or brick, which can be laid in many interesting patterns.

Detail the driveway: If pesky, determined weeds are breaking through your driveway’s surface, do spot repairs (kill the weeds and have the cracks repaved or otherwise filled in) and then define the borders with plantings, shrubs, bricks or flagstones.

Dress up the façade: Give your front door a fresh coat of paint, a new wreath or molding that adds substance and character; Railings, gutters and downspouts that show peeling paint, rust spots, or other signs of neglect should be repaired or replaced; Do a sweep of your entryway and replace any hardware that is rusty, worn, or out of date. House numbers, doorknobs and locksets, wall-mounted mailboxes and overhead light fixtures should be coordinated in style, material and finish for a pulled-together look.