4 Ways to Improve Your Home's Curb Appeal

March 23, 2011, By Kurt Simonsen 0 comments

I have often walked my neighborhood streets with my dog and wondered why some people seem to neglect their homes. I know that time is different for everyone, and that all people like different things. But what I struggle to get is that your home is your most precious material investment, so why not make it look as good as you can?

I hate the feeling of turning into my driveway and seeing my yard in disarray. It is my place, the place where I come to be me, the place I call my own. So, I feel a little unsettled when it looks as if I haven't cared for it in some time, and I suspect my neighbors do too. If my yard begins to deteriorate, then their places look worse strictly by proximity and association. Just not a good cycle to begin.

Yet I am like almost every average Joe just trying to keep his kids involved in life, get food on the table, and save for the uncertainties of the future: I have to make the money stretch. Therefore, when it comes to my yard, I plant some flowers, lay some mulch, and then maintain. A little cash up front for the color, but after that, the elbow grease is applied for free.

Thus, I get to keep my wallet closed and still feel really good when I walk out of my front door each morning, knowing that I did it and it looks good.

These are the four basic tasks I complete each week or so to insure my yard looks sharp.

Mow in lines: If your lawn looks like you spent the morning at a Guinness tasting festival only to return later to joy ride your John Deere, you have a serious issue. Seemingly drunken lawn mowing can make the rest of your yard, the manicured flower beds and the perfectly pruned trees, almost disappear, overshadowed by the unevenly shaggy green giant resting in the middle. It's like a bride getting ready for her wedding day, tanning her face golden bronze, putting on the most delicate strokes of make-up, slipping into an elegant yet refined dress, only to top it all off with a haircut that resembles one the college hockey team would give its newly initiated freshmen—a tuft here, a bald spot there. It just makes no sense. Instead, have a plan and mow in a defined pattern. Run lines that have the identical direction and width. The varying directions will bend the grass slightly and give it an appealing, textured look. Mix it up and go diagonally the next week, then a crisscross pattern the next.

Keep bushes trimmed: Simple idea, but so many homeowners forget to consistently give some love to the hedges and bushes dotting the landscape. Take a drive down any street, and I guarantee you find beautiful homes that are meticulously painted and maintained, but they have these overgrown beasts rooted in the front that look more like southern mullets than dwarf boxwoods. "Bad hair days" for your yard are unacceptable when it comes down to feeling good about where you live, not to mention that your neighbors certainly do not want to stroll out to grab the morning paper and have to see shrubs resembling Albert Einstein and Whoopi Goldberg flanking your walkway. To combat such a fiasco, grab a pair of clippers—electric, gas, or man-powered—and get to work. Shape them with tight corners or soft curves, and give them a look that is befitting of your home's character and style.