House Exterior Ideas and Designs

Robert Brewster Photography
White and medium sized rural two floor detached house in Providence with concrete fibreboard cladding, a pitched roof and a shingle roof.

Farm House

Bergeron Custom Homes, LLC

This is an example of a white country two floor house exterior in Charleston with a mixed material roof.

Buckhead- Custom Home on East Wood Valley Rd

Hask Custom Homes

Inspiration for a large and white classic two floor house exterior in Atlanta with wood cladding and a pitched roof.

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Traditional House Exterior

Red classic brick house exterior in Other with three floors and a flat roof.

Naples Beach House - Custom Home

41 West

Blue world-inspired house exterior in Miami with a hip roof.

classic project

SKR Homes

Photo of a classic brick house exterior in Toronto with a hip roof.

Eichler Front Addition

Klopf Architecture

How do you expand an L shaped Eichler with the challenge of extending a long dark entry? Klopf Architecture's solution, to design a light filled atrium in the hallway to open up the bedroom expansion with green plants, sky lights and a glass wall. Not to mention the thoughtfulness of a blind door with wood siding similar to the rest of the home. Klopf Architecture Project Team: John Klopf, AIA, Geoff Campen, Jeffrey Prose, and Angela Todorova Contractor: William Lowe Construction Photography ©2013 Mariko Reed Location: Palo Alto, CA Year completed: 2013

Kinderhook House

JAMES DIXON ARCHITECT PC

Photo: Mick Hales
Design ideas for a gey rural house exterior in New York with wood cladding and a mansard roof.

Atherton Modern Residence

Swatt | Miers Architects

Russell Abraham
Photo of a white and large modern two floor render house exterior in San Francisco with a flat roof.

Pass-a-grille Mediterranean

Jeffery M Wolf General Contractor, Inc.

This home has a masonry structure with impact rated clad wood windows and a clay tile roof. It sits on a small beachfront lot. The exterior stone is fossilized coral. The driveway is random fossilized coral with irrigated grass placed between the stones. The exterior is in a fairly traditional Mediterranean style but the interior is more modern and eclectic. Frank Bapte

Photos by SpaceCrafting
This is an example of a gey victorian two floor house exterior in Minneapolis with wood cladding.

Fort Langley home

F. M. Construction Ltd

SeeVirtual Marketing & Photography www.seevirtual360.com
This is an example of a green traditional house exterior in Vancouver with mixed cladding, three floors and a pitched roof.

Contemporary Ann Arbor Home

Angelini and Associates Architects

The design of the newly remodeled and enlarged home builds on the underlying good bones of the original house. The vertical tower became the main pivot point and focal point to the home with the addition of a spiral stair to a new third floor room at the top of the stairs. The tower is clad in stone veneer and includes new windows that bring southwestern light into the center of the home. The stone veneer continues along the base of the building with new horizontal cedar siding above. The horizontal planes and spaces of the home pinwheel from the central vertical stair tower, crowned in a unique room at the top. The new work, in addition to the tower, includes all exterior finishes, and many new windows, a more welcoming entry with a covered porch and new landscaping steps, a remodeled and enlarged home office with stone veneered interior walls, a remodeled powder room, a kitchen addition and remodeling of rich and varied materials, and a new family room space with a spacious deck located above the garage for entertaining. The new family room links the kitchen and outdoor deck visually. Photo by Jeff Garland

Jekyll Island renovation 1204-02

Kevin M. Higgins, Architect. P.C.

This 1960s ranch was transformed into a spacious, airy beach cottage -- ideal for its laid-back Jekyll Island setting. Contractor: Wilson Construction, Brunswick, GA

Plaza Midwood Craftsman - 2nd Story Addition

stirling group inc

Sterling E. Stevens Design Photo, Raleigh, NC - Studio H Design, Charlotte, NC - Stirling Group, Inc, Charlotte, NC
Gey classic two floor house exterior in Charlotte with wood cladding.

Custom Contemporary Home

Gryphon Builders

This custom contemporary home was designed and built with a unique combination of products that give this home a fun and artistic flair. For more information about this project please visit: www.gryphonbuilders.com. Or contact Allen Griffin, President of Gryphon Builders, at 281-236-8043 cell or email him at allen@gryphonbuilders.com

Mantel Street Melbourne Australia

Bagnato Architecture & Interiors

This red brick Queen Anne home was restored internally & externally with new circular driveway & garden edging & complete restoration of the front facade.

Boulevard Place

Matt Varnado - Varnado Photography

House Exterior Ideas and Designs

With so much attention devoted to interior design, the exterior of a home can often get overlooked, but as the first thing that welcomes both us and our guests, it is worth devoting some time tending to the outside of your house. Furthermore, focusing on the kerb appeal of your home can add significant value if and when it comes time to sell up. Georgian, Edwardian and Victorian homes, with their bay windows and elegant plasterwork, often benefit from built in architecture advantages, but even if your house design is unassuming from the outside, small decorative and structural improvements to the exterior of your home can equal huge impact. Key areas of building design to focus on are the front door, the driveway or approach to your home, the porch area, the windows, the facade and the roof. And just a note of caution... before any significant exterior architecture gets under way, check first whether you need planning permission for your exterior house designs– this applies particularly to listed houses or buildings in a conservation area, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Take a look through the house designs, exterior architecture and images of front doors and driveways on Houzz to inspire your facade or building design, or read on for a few more pointers when it comes to redesigning your exterior.

How do I give my home an exterior facelift?

You may feel like your home’s exterior architecture is unalterable but there are a wide range of options available to improve its external building design, no matter what raw materials you begin with. Begin with the front door and the pathway or driveway that lead up to your home as these are easy to improve without huge budgets. A driveway or pathway must be kept neat and tidy and you can consider replacing tarmac with attractive tiles or gravel. Repainting or replacing the fence, wall or gate that fronts your home can also offer an overnight transformation without breaking the bank. An area to not cut corners however is the front door, where spending a little extra can make a huge difference in quality, and painting it in a colour you love will pay you back every time it welcomes you home! Updating your windows can be a significant building design project but it is one that has benefits both inside and out, as well as potentially saving you money on energy later. If you are lucky enough to have period windows such as bay windows with sash or leaded windows, then maintaining them should be a top priority, but if they are beyond repair then there are plenty of window professionals that will offer modern, double or triple glazed equivalents that could still work in your bay window. Working with uPVC? Not a problem – the best improvement you can make is to ensure your windows are the right size and shape for your home's overall proportions.

How do I update my home’s facade?

When it comes to updating the facade of your home, painting is the quickest and most affordable way to achieve a makeover, and if you opt for a colour other than white it can really make a statement (although sticking within the palette of your road and local area is advisable). A makeover that requires a bit more patience but can add romance and character to the most mundane of homes is to adorn the walls with climbing plants – delicate trailing wisteria is ever a British favourite, whilst roses and jasmine offer fragrance as well as beauty. If you’re looking to make more significant changes to the exterior of your home, whether that is adding timber cladding, hanging tiles, installing a bay window or rendering, then you should first check whether your house designs require planning permission. A New England style wood boarded home is beautiful and bright, but remember that it will need frequent repainting if it is going to stay looking its best, whilst stucco render or Tyrolean render can tidy up a home's exterior but think carefully before covering over original brickwork.

What should I consider if building a home from scratch?

If you’re working with an architect on a brand new build, the options are endless when it comes to deciding on the exterior architecture. But first things first, you will need to check planning permissions, building regulations and local restrictions, such as being in a conservation area, to make sure your plans for your exterior house designs will meet stipulations. If you are building in a street with predominantly Victorian facades, with bay windows and side returns, you might need to ensure your house designs fit in with the rest of the homes on the street, but if you’re building in a more remote area you’ll probably have more freedom for your building design. There are many architectural decisions to make, do you want a flat, gabled, hipped, mansard or perhaps even a curved roof? Do you want bay windows? Crittall windows? Perhaps external shutters? Do you want glass walls? Do you want wood cladding? Do you want a very symmetrical building design or something more contemporary? The decision is all yours but remember to consider the benefits of various materials over others and the effects that some architecture styles will have on everyday life, for example glass walls will look attractive but will give you less privacy. Your architect or builder will be able to guide you through the best exterior architecture choices for your house designs.

baba_Haus

humnlab+ architecture /

bryAn winters
Photo of a contemporary bungalow house exterior in Los Angeles.

United Kingdom

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