Adding Curb Appeal: The Blank Slate Brick Ranch
Hey there Remodelaholic readers! Dawn here, from AD Aesthetic, and I’m back this month with another reader question mockup to hopefully inspire some creative ideas for your outdoor space. If you’ve missed any of my previous reader question mockups, you can always see all my posts here.
If you follow Remodelaholic on Facebook, you’ve probably seen several of the reader questions that are submitted every month. Well each month here on Remodelaholic, I choose one reader submitted photo to offer my two cents on, and I create a Photoshop mock up of what I would do if I were in your shoes! (Pssssst— you can submit your reader questions by messaging Remodelaholic on Facebook!)
First though, my disclaimer: While I can recommend ideas that I think look nice, I have never seen this house in real life and don’t have accurate measurements. I am also not an architect or landscaper and do not know the planting recommendations for your area- I just like to make things look nice. I can’t guarantee that any of the items I put in my ‘virtual’ design will actually work in real life (or that they’ll fit your design style for that matter), and this is not intended to be a professional design consultation. So think of this as a just-for-fun rendering that hopefully gets your wheels turning and provides some inspiration!
On to the fun!
READER QUESTION from Kelly —
We just recently bought a new house and I could really use some suggestions to improve the curb appeal. (paint colors, etc) It is pretty much a blank slate.
This month, Kelly’s new home jumped out at me because it looks like a lot of homes I see. It’s beautiful, but it really is a blank slate. That is to say, there’s nothing wrong with it, or anything that needs to be done, but it’s just a bit boring and could use a few touches to help make it more inviting and increase the curb appeal.
To start out, I looked around for some inspiring images to get the wheels turning. Here’s what I came up with:
Photo Credit: Meredith Teasley Photography
And with all that inspiration in mind, I got to work on Kelly’s blank slate house. Here’s what I would do if this were my home:
Curb Appeal Updates for a Blank Slate Home
I think the biggest issue with this house, as with a lot of similar ‘blank-slate’ houses, is that there is quite a bit of empty space. By that I mean that there are large expanses of home with no adornment or architectural interest to break them up. It tends to read as overwhelming and cold, and in the case of the large bricked area on this home, it can make the windows look small and out of place.
To fix this issue, I added a few things to create that visual interest and break up those big ,flat, blank areas. First off, shutters. This is the perfect way to bring color and interest to an otherwise unadorned home, especially one like this with narrow windows.I used a cool, robin’s egg blue for the shutters and matched the door to them as well. I love how the blue balances out the warmth of the brickwork, while not stealing the spotlight completely. I also changed the color of the siding to a less yellow neutral— a very light gray tone. A couple of fun pillows on the porch chairs and a welcoming door mat will help tie the cooler tones into the decor.
The second thing I did was to add a railing to the porch area. It helps define the entrance, and creates some horizontal lines to break up all the vertical lines created by the columns, door, sidelights, and window. Because the house itself is very horizontal, adding another horizontal element helps balance out the overall look.
Finally, I added some window boxes to the windows on the brick areas of the home. This not only gives the home some detail, but also brings color up onto the house, and helps tie those windows to the door and windows on the porch that have much more substantial trim work.
Once the architectural detail was added, the rest was just a matter of adding colorful plant life to soften things up. I kept the majority of the plantings low to the ground, with the exception of a few taller bushes around the porch area to make it feel more private and cozy. I also added hanging baskets to the porch area to bring even more color and life up onto the house, and create an inviting first impression.
Sources for this mockup:
Shutters
Porch Planters
Pillows
Window Boxes
Hanging Baskets
Porch Railing
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So what do you think? What would you do to boost the curb appeal of this blank slate home?
As always, thank you to Cassity and the Remodelaholic team for having me back each month. If you like this post, and have a design dilemma you’d like me to mock up some ideas for, you can ask your questions by sending Remodelaholic a message over on Facebook, or checkout my mockup design services over on my site adaesthetic.com. And be sure to follow me on Facebook, Pinterest, or Instagram and say hello! Have a great day, friends!
-Dawn
More inspiring curb appeal updates:
Dawn is one half of the team behind the creative blog, AD Aesthetic. By day she works as the VP of Creative for a design and marketing company (getting paid to make things look good!), while by night she renovates her Midwest home, refinishes thrift-store furniture for fun, and works with her husband on raising two tiny humans. Dawn believes in the potential to design your surroundings and your life one day at a time, and lives by the motto, 'Make everything beautiful.' Get to know her better by visiting her blog, ADaesthetic.com, or following along on Facebook and Instagram.
