How do you make your home stand out?

Comments (28)

PRO
Laura Spring Studio
7 years ago
Love the yellow! A brightly painted front door is always cheering and fun.
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Angelboyman nails it for me. We have been in this house 32 years and have done everything at least once from renewing the roof and windows to digging out the floor, putting in a damp course and installing central heating. The ensuing recoration has been a "classic" traditional colour-scheme of soft barley and sage green to suit the era the house was built. It suits us down to the ground and we are not distracted by outdated decor. We give it a lick of paint when it needs it. The house is the only one in this Victorian terrace to have retained many original features such as picture rails, dado, marble fireplace and ceiling rose, but internal doors were sadly a victim of the dreaded Fire Certificate and other "improvements", which also mean all the features inc. windows and front door were not retained as we would have wished and we have also had to cover the pine floors we so lovingly restored with carpets and vinyl because they needed protecting from high-heels and countless sandy feet. We also dopted the German fashion for wood-chipping and painting what were pretty uneven walls. They have been over-painted so often, the texture is barely visible and it has withstood the test of time. We are in a seaside location, so there has been heavy wear and tear from a couple of generations of holiday making friends and relatives as well as our own family. The kitchen is the biggest challenge being north-facing with practically no light and whilst it was being excavated we made the bathroom into a temporary kitchen, but never restored it, so now we have two showers and three toilets in the house, but no bath! The room is a designated "laundry room" which is also a tool store, boiler and hobby room. The house will soon be on the market, so redecoration will not be our choice. The new caretakers of this happy home will have a blank canvas. Good luck to them! I just hope they retain the features and the character.
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Resh
7 years ago
We have kept the front of the (early 1930's) house the same as the rest of the street, so that the street looks cohesive. Modifications are limited to a nice front door, reprint and refurbishment, and one day making the front garden and driveway prettier. It is actually quite a pretty building at the front, so this was fine.

The back is another matter as the ugly old 70's extension has been completely overhauled, repainted dark grey and had new black windows and doors fitted to make it look very modern and in keeping with the interior renovations.
056114
7 years ago
Agree - one has to be mindful of the cohesiveness/harmony of the streetscape. Doing something individual or creative with the garden or front door colour/accessories is always good though
PRO
indigozest
7 years ago
Lighting is a great way to make your house stand out without affecting it structurally and permanently. We have installed some solutions where you can have colour changing LED lights up a stairwell, that then glow out from any external window. They can be bright, subtle and dim throughout the evening.
Jayk
7 years ago
Absolutely agree with the comments so far. Keeps things cohesive, complementary and well maintained.
Tom Flanagan
Original Author
7 years ago
This is all really interesting to hear - cohesion is important but I'm of the mind that it's your home first and foremost! That said, perhaps I've been abroad too long and lost touch with my inner Britishness....
Julie Bennett-Pitts
7 years ago
I think there is far to much fitting in with the norm, all being the same and it's about time owners showed some individualism in the front of the property. Cohesive is just another word for conforming.
Julie Bennett-Pitts
7 years ago
Grammar correction before someone else does it for me "too much"
hounoc
7 years ago
The streetscape and larger environment are also your 'home' Tom but they are shared with others. Exercising aesthetic sensitivity to your surroundings is important. No man, and no building is an island etc. Also, I am not British, so it's not just a British thing. Far from it. Have you ever been to an Italian city?
jelliest
7 years ago
There are a couple of highly visible streets in Bristol where each terraced house is painted a different colour - they are well-known and much-loved local landmarks as a result! Many of the colours are bright and clashing, and would be very contentious in a 'normal' white/magnolia neighbourhood, but in this context they look great and ironically I *think* the planning busy-bodies have obliged them to keep it this way. They are such refreshing streets to walk along.
Jayk
7 years ago
“Cohesion” is “the action or fact of forming a united whole”. In terms of this discussion that can be either a good thing or a bad thing depending on the circumstances.

Many years ago I bought my first home. It was a terraced cottage in the middle of the terrace. All the cottages had their original Victorian brick facades and were decently maintained. I painted my façade white and the woodwork a shade of mid to dark blue. I thought it looked great. I now bury my head-in-my hands at the thought of the eyesore I created and the total lack of respect I showed to both the original architecture and the feelings of my neighbours.

On the other hand, if an area has been neglected I accept it could well be a “breath of fresh air” to see people improving the exteriors of their homes in imaginative and creative ways.

However, perhaps as a result of my early experience, I would always carefully consider whether my creative efforts were adding to, or detracting from, the look of the neighbourhood before proceeding.
Jayk
7 years ago
"jelliest" aptly draws our attention to "...highly visible streets in Bristol where each terraced house is painted a different colour". This is a great example of cohesion/conformity within the context of a single street. Cohesion doesn't have to be dull or unimaginative.
ShellbyFay
7 years ago
We haven't been in our new home long enough to really think about the exterior.. at the minute it has an Olaf from Frozen fashioned out of pumpkins outside the front door that I should probably throw away now. But it was the exterior that drew me in really. It's a new build so I was expecting to find ourselves in an ugly box but ours has a kind of quaint, terraced cottage look to it. There isn't anything that I would change at the minute.
sukiharrison
7 years ago
I'm sorry, but those awful windows have made the house lose all of its original character and style !
mayfly182
7 years ago
I'm surprised by the number of people who think blending in is much more important than standing out.

I tend to prefer 'variations on a theme' in a row of houses with each house having something which makes it stand out from the rest, rather than complete uniformity. I've seen this done with particular success with ex-council-houses (now housing association houses) which were once all brick, now painted cream on the bottom halves and a wide range of green or blue shades for the tops, no two the same in a street. The area went from dreary identikit to charming.

My own house is a Victorian stone built house in a row of others. I have unassuming pale French Grey for the windows but a stunning glossy deep blue or purple (depending on the light and the viewer) for the door. The colour is Thai Sapphire from Little Greene. I'm planning to grow a deep red rose round the door when I get round to doing the garden.
lego_girl
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
My previous home was a Victorian terrace. Rather than a deliberate wish to stand out, we did want our home to look neat, tidy and appealing as much for ourselves as anyone else so did the following:-

- painted the door a pretty grey green shade

- annually refreshed a small planted trough

- had cute ornaments on the windowsill that some would admire as they walked past

- the house front met the pavement with no front garden so we kept the front curtains shut until I bought a cheap frosted window sticker with a nice design.

- jaunty lining on the curtains which looked nice when they were shut

- we regularly washed the Windows, front door and doorstep as well as the brickwork on the front of the house as it all used to get filthy. (This made a huge difference)

Now we have a semi detached in the country it has been all about making the property look in keeping with its surroundings (it's a 1930s ex council semi).

- new porch with nicely painted stable door at the front, rose growing over the top of it

- lovely name plaque

- front garden with raised beds, veges and typical British flowers which looks appealing to me at least

- nicely finished drive

- aiming to keep internal windowsills free of clutter and Windows all clean!

*its the little things!
J
7 years ago
I'm moving to the UK in a few weeks and I enjoy the traditional architecture. But some areas are so similar I have wondered how many people have walked into the wrong front door. Or at least tried the keys.
Tom Flanagan
Original Author
7 years ago
@hounoc I have indeed and point taken - although I do feel there's something innately dramatic about traditional Italian homes, so standing out is less of an issue!

This is interesting though and touches on what @mayfly182 mentions - is standing out or blending in more important?
hounoc
7 years ago
I think doing your part to make the streetscape look good is what's important. You can certainly do small things to make your house a little bit different to the one next door but I don't understand why you would want your house to 'stick out' like the proverbial sore thumb. It's about tempering your desire for individual expression in consideration of the fact that you live amongst others and share the environment with them. If it were perfectly fine for everyone to just do what they want then we would have no qualms about plastic cladding, a drive-through burger joint opening up in the middle of an historic quarter etc.

If someone's home stands out too much it just shouts 'Look at me! My house is the best. I'll do what I want and I don't care about what my neighbours or any other passers by now or in the future think'. It's just not an appealing trait and more often than not, the result is in dubious taste aesthetically.
jelliest
7 years ago
hounoc (and others) we have probably the most restrictive planning system in the world here. So there are many countries to look at where people are allowed more freedom of expression and the result is not always awful. In fact if you move out of the safe middle ground you might get some examples of bad taste popping up, but you would also allow more examples of excellence in design. Of the plethora of innovative modern one-off houses I've seen over the years, I can only think of one that I really didn't like. Many of the others I wouldn't necessarily have chosen to live in or build myself, but I celebrate their ingenuity and the aesthetic statement that they make nevertheless.

Making a design statement is not necessarily about wanting to stand out, it is also about people having the courage to express what they are about, beyond what they plant in pots by the front door. And uniformity is not the only pleasing aesthetic, nor is it always pleasing (think Bath's Royal Crescent vs any of the thousands of cheap and nasty developments found all over the country); it's just what we as a nation have encouraged via our planning system. Because the planning system is so draconian, there is a widespread perception that if you want planning permission, you have to build something that looks like its neighbours, and this is perpetuating the blandness of our neighbourhoods. It is a rejection of the reality that people are different, and that this difference is sometimes a good thing.
hounoc
7 years ago
Yes, but it also take a special kind of arrogance to override an architect's vision for a particular development. For example, my parents' housing estate was designed with no garden walls at the front so that the houses would seem as if they are almost in a park and there would be an expanse of green all the way along the roads. Then a few territorial types took it into their heads to build piddly little garden walls so now the road is a hodge podge of some green with a few silly walls around some gardens. There is no design consensus so the street doesn't look as good as it could look. Anarchy in design doesn't usually work. Usually it looks better when one person makes the design decisions and one, cohesive vision is expressed. For example, would you employ a different interior decorator with wildly different styles for each room in your house? It might work, but there's a greater chance it will look like the hodge-podge that it is. Would you have one dress designer make your whole dress or would you ask for pockets and collar to be cut by someone else?

In some cases, a good result can come of an individual resident on a street making their own strong statement with the exterior of their house (we're not talking about subtleties such as colour of doors etc), but they are definitely the exceptions that prove the rule. I can think of many examples of tasteless 'improvements' made by individual residents to their properties (e.g. the one pictured above, frankly) and only a few good ones.
peediewee
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
i like how my victorian house looks from the outside. that's one of the things that attracted me to it. the only thing that makes it stick from all the other victorian & georgian houses on our street is the palm tree in the front garden. it was planted by the previous owner & is about 10 foot high at the moment. i like that as well. :)

i don't think any of the houses in tthe street 'conform'. everyone has different coloured doors & windows. there's a range of styles of architecture. different planting arrangements & garden ornaments. our houses compliment each other in our street but they're definitely not bland. :)
nicola holland
7 years ago
would just love to look around that house !!!!
Sandra Marshall
7 years ago
Really interesting discussion. I have lived in my 1930s semi for 4 years, painted my front door green,and put up hanging baskets and pots, but I still sometimes drive past. Need to take up some of the block paving and make a garden.
Catherine Ellis
7 years ago
From a mismatched mess of fake Georgian Windows and an ugly upvc door. I've made mine stand out by trying to hide all the ugly features
Lucy Sawyer
7 years ago
That's our house - the one on the left! Both houses have changed a bit since the picture was taken! Still very different but not as contrasty. Daylight was coming round the edges and through the bottom panel of the red door, so it had to be upgraded. We now have lavender at the front which is very tidy right now but goes wild in the summer time and attracts lots of bees - which we love! We are a small road but all the houses have lots of personality and and exhibit a range of Victorian terrace features. Here's a picture to show how we look now.
Catherine Ellis
7 years ago
It's really lovely now, but I think I prefer the original picture :-D

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How do you make your home stand out?

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Comments (28)

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