It can be hard making your home stand out.
D.C houses are unique to the area but can look pretty unremarkable to outsiders who don’t know where to look for all their little quirks. You need the house’s uniqueness to be visible if you want it to be instantly and enduringly remarkable to outsiders.
That’s why we’ve highlighted a few things you can do to make your home stand out from the crowd. We’ve started by helping you establish what architectural style your home is before offering you some tips to make your exterior, interior, and garden unique — spoiler, it won’t make your home look like the White House.
Start by knowing what architectural style your home is
You know your home better than anyone else. You eat there, you sleep there, you live there. You know every part of your home and have a keen awareness of its best bits.
But we can all understand our homes a little better and the starting point is knowing its architectural style. This is a vital piece of information when carrying out tweaks to make it stand out, as it allows you to conduct changes that embellish its style.
These are the eight distinct architectural styles that characterize D.C. homes:
- Beaux Arts: Elaborate and flamboyant.
- Bungalows: Simple and welcoming.
- Colonial: Grandiose and imposing.
- Contemporary: Clean and modern.
- Craftsman: Uncomplicated and minimalist.
- Federal: Modest and historic.
- Tudor: Angular and medieval.
- Victorian: Majestic and quintessential.
Whether you have a historic D.C home or a modern abode, we’ve given you the information to allow you to know what style your house is. The following sections have some top tips to help your home stand out.
Make your home stand out a tweak to the exterior
The exterior of your house is the first impression people get of your home. First impressions count for a lot and you want your home to stand out for the right reasons. You want to make your neighbors and passersby envious of your home, rather than dismissive of it.
There are plenty of exterior changes you can conduct to make your home stand out and building a porch is one of the most visible. We’ve listed some of the key things you need to know about building a porch underneath:
Build a porch
A porch has the dual benefit of adding shelter from the elements and making your home stand out from the sidewalk.
Building a porch can be a big, expensive job, with prices ranging anywhere from $15,000 to $30,000 if you employ a contractor. However, you can drop this down to $5,000 if you build your own porch.
If you do decide to add a porch to your home, you need to know the appropriate steps to achieve an eye-catching build. The first step is to get approval for your porch, as you can’t begin to plan your next moves until you know if you’re allowed to build one. Check out what the specific regulations are in your area before you get started — if you don’t, you might spend a lot of money building a porch that gets torn down pretty quickly, which isn’t a good look!
Make your home stand out with a tweak to the interior
The exterior of your home is what guests see when they enter your home. Unlike the exterior (some of which can’t be changed), people see your interior as the way you choose to live. You want the interior of your home to stand out from the crowd for the right reasons.
There’s so much to choose from when it comes to interior changes you can make to your home. You can add new furniture or even knock through a wall to create a new room. Changing the color scheme is one of the most effective ways to make your interior stand out and color-blocking is a great way to achieve this:
Use color-blocking
Color-blocking is the use of a small number of bright, bold colors together in a room. It can be interpreted in a few ways but one of the most popular is to match the color of your room to your furniture and contrast that to the tone used for your floor.
The idea of color-blocking is that you pick bold colors for your walls and furniture, with softer tones for your floors. You can use a dashing blue, green or red for your walls and furniture. Combine this with delicate wood floors or gently shaded rugs for your floors.
If you really want your home to stand out then you can use a different color scheme for each room of your house, perhaps, giving each one a different theme. So, decide on the colors you want for your walls, furniture, and floor then add them to your home!
Make your home stand out with a beautiful garden
The garden of your home is where nature and creativity come together as one. It’s a social area for entertaining, a natural environment to be at one with the elements, and a canvas for you to assert the identity of your home.
Garden’s are one of the most unique parts of a home because they’re forever changing — whether you want them to or not! They’re also booming in popularity since the outbreak of coronavirus, with 26% of Americans starting a food garden. While flowers, trees, bushes, and vegetables are all great, the soil is the most important part of your garden to get right. It’s the life support system for your plants and if it’s unhealthy then your plants will die.
Make your soil healthy
Healthy soil starts by getting the foundations right. Every garden is its own little ecosystem but many U.S. states share a common trait of the ground being made up of clay soil. This makes the ground slow to drain and causes many plants to die.
Tackling the clay soil in your garden gives you the foundations for your plants to survive and thrive. Knowing how to amend clay soil isn’t something everyone is aware of but you can take a few steps to improve it and once you’ve done so you’ll give your plants the life support system they need. So, if you want a healthy garden that looks gorgeous then make sure you’ve got the foundations in place — if you don’t it’ll stand out for the wrong reasons!
We’ve explained what D.C’s different architectural styles are. We’ve given you tips on how to make the exterior, interior, and garden of your home stand out to people moving to the D.C. area. Now it’s up to you to make those improvements. Good luck getting started! If you have any questions on how to make your home stand out for a quick sale, contact us at Eng Garcia to help.
Keywords:
- Architectural style
- D.C. home