Renovating the exterior of your home

The outside of any home is just as important as the interior, but I’m amazed at how the exterior of so many properties are just left to deteriorate. There is no point in cutting corners when renovating the outside of your building because over time the damage caused by our wet and windy British weather will soon cause damage to your wonderful interior. I recently went to see a property that was for sale on the Isle of White for a good client of mine. He was looking to buy a second home to escape city life and so his kids could learn how to sail. Lucky him. The estate agents details read ‘Beautiful cottage, in a picturesque coastal location’. Well, yes it was in a picturesque coastal location (where isn’t on the Isle of White!) but it was a depressing bungalow, not a cottage, and it was far from beautiful.

The outside was covered in pebbledash that was literally crumbling off the wall into my hands. There was rising damp because a proper damp proof course had not been installed at the low level of the external walls. Cheap, plastic fascia boards had been badly fitted in the 1980′s along with cheap plastic UPVC windows which were so out of character with the original 1930′s architecture that the building looked sad and depressed.

The original timber entrance porch had been removed to make way for a mock-Tudor-Georgian-Victorian (to be honest I couldn’t tell what period or architecture it was supposed to be copying!) white plastic porch that was falling apart.

Here was a perfectly good 1930′s home that had been ruined because of terrible decisions about the outside of the building. It not only looked bad, but the way the pebble dash and bad windows had been used meant there was no ventilation for the inside of the building and there was evidence of damp everywhere. There is no excuse for it. The house was wrecked.

My mate didn’t want to go for it, but I explained that it was the best buy he would ever make. Why? This building was cheap because of its poor condition, it needed to be saved, and I knew that with a few simple moves the outside of this building would smile again!

He bought it and we started work. We stripped off all of the old pebble dash and re-clad the outside of the building in affordable, horizontal ship-lap boarding giving it a lick of ‘Light Blue’ Farrow and Ball paint. Perfect for the Isle of White.

The UPVC windows were ripped out and sent for recycling and beautiful timber casement windows were made to match the original style. This time though they were double-glazed with proper trickle vents to meet all the current requirements of the building regulations and so the building could breath again.

The porch and UPVC fascias went the same recycling route and a simple, well-designed timber porch and timber fascias were soon erected along with an injected damp-proof course in the outside walls to get rid of the rising damp. We took down the modern metal boundary fencing around the garden and replaced it with traditional timber fencing and spent a small amount on the surrounding landscaping. What a transformation! The ugly duckling miserable bungalow, turned into the most beautiful swan of a coastal cottage. Passers-by would stop to take photographs of it because it looked so good. It was like a home from Desperate Housewives. The entire budget was £14,000 and it was worth every penny. Even in a falling market, the value of the home increased by so much more than we had spent. Not that he sold the place. His wife won’t hear of it!

Even if you aren’t considering such a radical change to the outside of your house, please consider every exterior home improvement carefully. Is the style and character of your home going to be compromised? Is the selection of material going to cause damage to other parts of the house? And is the improvement going to last at least 15-20 years? If not, then don’t do it!

Also, don’t forget about maintenance. Like going to the dentist, going to the doctors, or putting your car in for a service we all need some attention and work done at some point and it’s no different for your home. Leave maintenance too long and the problems with your home become bigger and more costly. Look after your home and you’ll be proud of it every time you walk up to your front door.