Hi David we have done the same with parts of our home using Metsa timber. Which is a larch. It looks great but as it greys over a season it would be too much to do our whole house.

I'm thinking of either using pre painted cement Hardy boards which require no maintenance, or a mix of painted brick and more larch.

What about the upper half in timber, and paint the lower section? Adding a simple oak porch would tie it in.

Metsa wood cost us from memory £7 linear meter. So it worked out at £700.
If your house is cold you can add extra insulation behind. But remember to order the nails to go with it, or you will,end up,with dark staining.

Thank you!!! That's really good advice. Do you have pictures that you could share?

Thanks again. David.

David, google 'before after house exteriors uk' and look at images - there are quite a few you may like. This is interesting as well: http://www.realhomesmagazine.co.uk/how-to/expert-advice/exterior-makeover-part-one

Good luck!

Have you checked with the planning department about here alterations. Not all cladding, rendering etc falls under permitted development.

Hi David,

You could clad your house with our artificial green wall panels for all year round green wall appearance with no maintenance and 3 year UV warranty.

Thanks - but I'm really not a fan of artificial green wall panels haha.

Thanks Rory - most of the other houses down this street have rendered walls so I would imagine it will be ok. Good point though. Our favourite product so far is from Silvatimber which is about £35 per sq metre. We're thinking of having a 3rd of the front in rendering / third brick and third timber.

Oh and the render is only partly painted, so excuse the patchiness you see on some parts

Wow Karen that looks amazing! Can I ask where you sourced the cedar from? We are currently considering Silvatimber. Thanks David.

Any advice on windows would also be greatly received. Does anyone know a decent window company that will quote over the phone in the first instance. I don't want someone coming round and giving me the hard sell.

We sourced ours from Vincent Timber (midlands based) but Silva Timber are good, and we are sourcing cedar for some fencing screens from them soon. Good luck!

Thanks Karen. I'll check out Vincent Timber too!

We're still not sure what to do. Currently thinking of cedar on the last Han side upto the drain pipe and rending the entrance way. Decisions, decisions.

David, I'm not sure how much it would cost to get a local architect to come up with some alternatives for you. Probably a lot less than making a mistake and regretting it. They will be aware of the locality and the local planning regulations too, thus helping you avoid possible costly mistakes. That is in my view your best way forward. N.B. This type of work is meat and drink to the majority of architects and fees are on the whole very reasonable. Most are not engaged in major public works, infrastructure projects or huge skyscrapers.

Alternatively, experiment. Not with the house, with a picture of it.

Copy the picture you have or take another, several even. Bring one up in an image manipulation programme. There are several available including free open source ones, some freeware ones and those you can get on a month's free trial. Take your pic(k).

Use the programme to "paint" the exterior of the house in various styles, using colours and patterns which emulate your choices of wood and rendering. Just make sure you always use a copy of the original picture each time. Your operating system will allow you to make as many copies as you like and give each a different name. Having to take a new photo each time can become a bit of a pain. If you can get an idea of materials costs and labour costs you should be able to come up with an idea that pleases you within your budget.

This will give you ideas far closer to what you can achieve than by looking at thousands of photographs of very nice houses but of different shapes to yours. Then have an informal chat with your planning department to check there is nothing in there which could be questioned later on.

Please let us all know which way you choose to go and how you get on.

Thank you. We did think about getting an architect to do some drawings but it's easier said than done. Everyone in Norwich seems to have too much work on. I actually did what you said yesterday but with paints. It's made us rule out a couple of options.

A friend of mine who is a professional photographer has offered to help mock some options up in Photoshop. Unfortunately he's just had a bereavement in the family so I need to be patient,

Thanks for the advice. You're right we need to mock it up to get it right.

Many thanks!

David

After a while we've decided to appoint an architect. It's looking like we'll get all new aluminium Windows and maybe a funky orange door :) Anyone know of a door supplier that sells reasonably priced contemporary doors?

How about timber windows? Have a look at these makeovers.

Hi, I’m new to this and am trying to make our 1950s house more appealing from the front. Would love to see your end result 5years on 😊

Hi Louise. In the end we merely added new windows and a new door. We went for a mixture of Sapele and aluminium to break up the width of the house. The windows are made by Smart and are the Alitherm Heritage 47 range which are supposed to a close match to Critall. We also converted our garage and matched the windows and use of Sapele frame as well as having a bespoke Sapele gate.

We're still not convinced we made the right choice by adding two sapele windows - but we always have the option to add aluminium ones to replace them and they are not too costly. So - it's not 100% what we wanted, but for the budget we had we are very pleased. The garage conversion is very cool inside with bespoke ply shelves/desk and seating area as well as ply walls. It is a homage to Corbusier and his Cabana in South of France :)

For some reason it will only let me upload one image. I'll try again another day...

I would love to know how much it cost to replace the windows? Looks lovely x

Oh and the door is lovely! where was that from?

The windows were through Broadland Windows in Norwich. They are Smart Alitherm Heritage - which is slim like a Critall window - https://www.smartsystems.co.uk/product/132/alitherm-heritage - we had a lot of windows replaced and two doors. The rough cost per window is £500-1000 - from memory - it all depends obviously on the size of the window and what openings you have. In fact some windows were quite small so we didn't have them with openings and they were much cheaper.

The door was bespoke and made from Sapele. We sourced the door handle ourselves. A local joiners made it for us - we loved it so much we had a second door made. I'm not sure if you can see in the photograph but we also had 2 windows in sapele on the left hand side. I'm still not sure if that was the right decision :)

Hi David, Just wondering finally what happened with your extranl cladding idea? I'm rennovating newly bought house and planning to change the exisitng cladding ( in the picture) to red cedar. I get all sorts of advice like I need planning permission becuase it 'looks' different to the exisitng one etc.. And my council planners will not give any direction unless I pay for a meeting and I do not want to speand any money yet! Not sure you have any knowledge on this from your research/experience that you can share please? Appreciate any input. Many thanks.

Im afraid i cant advise as we didnt get cladding in the end. sorry sorry.

Thank you for getting back, David. Much appriciated.