Having an excellent home says a lot about the owner. Let’s put it straight: a home is more than a shelter. Maybe it was never anything more in ages past, but times have changed, and now we see our home as a comfortable, relaxing, soothing environment where we spend most of our time. We sleep, eat, drink, raise our children, and spend our retirement in our homes, so it comes as no surprise that we want to make it as comfortable and attractive as possible.
Home décor specialists and interior designers can help us with new, exciting ideas which can make our home more modern, stylish and fashionable. While most of these ideas do work, there are some interesting ideas that we can build ourselves. They are simple, but if done with passion, they can change your whole home for the better.
Follow these simple tips to maintain the curb appeal of your home make it the most attractive in your neighborhood. Your neighbors will envy, but also admire the new look of your home.
Rain Gutter Gardens
Gardens are often overlooked when people try to redesign or beautify their home. In many cases, people will only focus on their front garden. The front lawn will almost always be perfectly mowed, the grass will be dark green and the flowers will be freshly cut. However, there is so much more to make a garden look wonderful. For instance, the back garden and the side areas are often ignored, even by the more up-to-date homeowner.
Rain gutter gardens and rain chains are great ideas that can make your home look fresh and inviting. They can become great planters for almost any type of plant and can be amazingly effective as decorative elements even for the front area of your house.
Even though gutters are not designed to make your home look better, rain gutter gardens do look great and can help you beautify your home. They can become amazing design pieces, mainly because they are easy to paint and remodel, they are small and don’t occupy much space, and they can be combined with different settings and shapes. Here are some ideas for your rain gutter garden:
- Strawberry or blueberry garden – many people dream about having their personal berry garden right at their doorstep, and with a gutter garden, this idea becomes possible. Gutters are shallow containers and can provide very easy drainage for the soil, making it ideal for blueberries and strawberries.
- Seasonal flower garden – flowers are loved by everyone, and a gutter garden is ideal to create your own micro-garden with seasonal flowers. Pansies, violas, and marigolds love shallow planters, and the gutters are perfect for them. You can hang your flower gardens on the walls facing South, bringing color and brightness to your house.
- Hanging gardens – vertical gardens are spectacular in any setting. There’s something special about hanging flowers and plants that make every home look great. You can create an intricate design of successive gutters, combine different gutter lengths, and sizes to create that particular vertical garden you have always dreamed of.
- Herb gardens – people love growing fresh herbs in their house and gutter gardens are ideal for them. The elongated shape of the gutter allows you to plant different herbs in the same planter, and you can hang it right in front of the kitchen window. You’ll just have to reach out and pluck some herbs whenever you want.
Create Soffits and Fascias for the Roofline Area
The roofline area is usually the only part of the roof that is visible from the street, but people often overlook its importance. Most homes have a bland, white, or beige colored soffit or fascia, but they can be much more attractive. You can create wood fascias, with specially designed cut-outs or unique handmade drawings. You can quickly draw them yourself, and they will change the roofline completely. Similarly, some homeowners may opt to add figurines or other small sculptures to their soffits, to make them more attractive. All these ideas, if done unpretentiously, but with decency and in good taste, will make your home stand out in the neighborhood. If you should happen to make a mistake, it’s fine, you can generally find a repair specialist like those at www.thegutterexperts.com to repair the problem!
The writer, Flaviu Mircea, is a blogger specializing in home improvement topics who gives advice on how to make a home beautiful. You can learn more about Flaviu on Google+.