Home "Front" Help

A reader has sent us this picture of the front facade of her home, and asked for advice on how to give it more personality. You've got a great start! I like the roof line, and your deep front yard with shade tree offers a lot of possibilities. Too bad we can't move that tree about five feet to the left, but... Here's the home, as-is.

It's often difficult to tell from the angle of a photograph, but I'm trying to figure out why the garage door seems to be a little off-center on the garage. Much of the material that is used to create the trims under a stucco finish are lightweight and easy to work with. You might try duplicating the trims on the right side of the garage door to balance it out.

She also wondered if her garage door should be painted to match the front door for continuity. Well, this is a tricky matter... One issue I have with many newer built homes is the garage. Because we all would like to house our 2+ cars per family, we sometimes (luckily, not in your case!) end up owning a garage with attached home! But I don't like to see all the attention brought to the garage if we can help it. Here's what a dark garage door would look like.

In this case, I would be more inclined to paint the garage door to match the home color, which will really focus more attention to your front door.

Other ideas to increase your "charm factor" would be pavers on the driveway and walk, or a stamped-stained concrete over the existing drive and walk. I would remove the Travelers Palms (or giant Bird-of-Paradise?) from the left side of the house...these will become huge and unruly. At the far left corner of the house and the right corner of the garage, I might use Crape Myrtles in bush form (foliage not trimmed on lower branches) in a dark pink color. Then, try forming a planting bed that will wrap around the Crape Myrtle on the left side, come around to encompass the oak tree, and softly curve down to end about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way down the driveway. This would really lead the eye to your front door, and make your entrance more inviting. You could also do a bed around the Crape Myrtle to the right of the driveway that would tie into the driveway on that side, ending about 1/2 of the distance the other bed encompasses.

These planting beds could be filled with ferns and green plants of multiple textures and heights, leaving room for annuals and perennials in complementary colors to the Crape Myrtles.

If you're interested in a color change for the exterior, I could envision a "Cafe Latte" color for the body of the house, with a warm gray trim, still keeping the garage door the color of the body of the home. Then you might try a complementary color for the front door to add a little spark. Photoshop is a great place to try out new home colors without buying any paint, or try just printing a picture of your home on regular paper, and using colored markers. Hey...why not turn the kids loose on this? You may find an unexpected solution...or not!