More homeowners than ever before are undertaking a home renovation or improvement project, many of which focus on the exterior of their homes. Exterior renovations can improve both the look and functionality of your home’s exterior.
If you’ve been considering a renovation project for your home’s exterior, here are five of the current trends to help jumpstart your own creative ideas:
- Let there be light
Sunlight makes the interior of a home feel more natural and even more spacious. While more natural light has been a desire of homeowners for some time, today’s homeowner who undertakes exterior renovations wants thinner window frames and larger windows to accomplish this desire for more added exterior light.
Thinner frames allow more windows to be grouped together while providing a less-expensive alternative to a single massive window. Many renovations are also including transoms. These small interior windows are often placed near the ceil between rooms or over doorways and allow sunlight to infiltrate into space in which it would otherwise be blocked. While often seen in the elegant, classical architecture of vintage homes, transoms are making a comeback in today’s renovations.
- Enhanced outdoor spaces
Many homeowners today want to spend more time enjoying the outdoors. This has led to an increased interest in expanding or enhancing their home’s outdoor spaces. This not only can expand a home’s footprint and effective living space, but it also allows residents and guests to relax in and enjoy a more natural setting.
Today’s outdoor space renovations range from the simple and traditional, like enlarging and improving patios and decks, to more sophisticated enhancements like exterior TVs, lighting, sound systems, and exterior kitchens and lounge areas.
- Blending indoor and outdoor spaces
Interest in the outdoors isn’t limited to just the exterior of the home. Along with enhancing their home’s outdoor space, many homeowners desire to blend their outdoor and indoor living spaces through their exterior renovation projects.
Some of the more popular ways to accomplish this are multi-panel exterior doors that slide or glide completely out of the way. This helps create a wide, often seamless, connection to the outside space as if expanding your living room or family room into your patio area. Similar flooring between the interior and exterior spaces further enhances this blended feel.
- Multi-textured facades
One of the hottest trends in exterior renovations is exteriors that combine materials and textures to create a varied look. This can give your home added depth and dimension as well as a unique appearance.
There are many ways to accomplish this. For example, you might combine fiber cement siding with stone accents to give a contrast in materials, or blend horizontal siding with vertical siding to provide contrasting textures. Neutral-toned paint or siding can be paired with bold accents and highlights for a sharp look, or you might lap siding with shingle, shakes, or decorative siding. There is no end to the look you can create with the many colors, materials, and textures available today.
- Low maintenance
Today’s homeowners, from younger to older, want to spend less time maintaining their homes. Avoiding a weekend of power washing, staining siding, painting trim, and other tedious tasks is a desire for any homeowner.
To accomplish this, many exterior cladding options offer authentic, handsome styles, but in man-made materials methods that resist moisture, cracking, and insects. When installed properly by trained professionals, these updates will last for many years with little to no maintenance required.
The above are just a few of today’s most popular trends that can give you ideas about your own home exterior renovation. With so many options available today and designs and materials, the only real limit is your imagination.
Have some ideas about a home exterior renovation project? Contact R3 Renovations and we’ll work with you to turn your ideas into an exterior home transformation that is perfect for you.
