How to Give The Front of Your Home a Low-Cost Makeover | DIY | Great Home Ideas

[Music] the front of your place can say everything about you or nothing at all it's a big chance to make a great first impression so jase and i have taken on the challenge of a facelift for this cute little house but this is gonna be non-surgical i like the old houses the ones that haven't been touched but there's a lot to that it's not many of those around now these days i mean this sort of place is typical isn't it you've got bits and pieces that have been added on over the years morning guys hey girl guys home sweet home yeah we weren't talking poorly of your house but we were saying that it's like multi-generational because there's a few things there that just don't match you've got the brand new front door you've got the old windows the cladding you can see where the veranda was but you can't really tell what kind of house it is what made you fall in love with this place um i think location and it's um you know one story is really good we've got young children so it just really suits us but it definitely could use a bit of a revamp out the front it's not all bad we've got um this really sandy soil that coastal soil so it's um a bit hard to get the lawn to grow that sort of died off very quickly in terms of style what do you guys love um i would say we really love coastal style like we love you know the green succulents and coastal grays and whites so i think that's probably what we love we love the beach and that inspiration so luckily he and i kind of know what we're doing so we should be able to make that happen awesome yeah [Laughter] fixing up stuart mill's place has to start with a clear out of course [Music] it's the little trims and details that really can bring a mismatched house together these windows well they've both been installed in completely different ways so i'm ripping the whole lot off to replace it i'm adding this slightly more slimline contemporary profile i think once it's painted up the two windows well they'll match together just a little more harmoniously so the lillypilly hedge so rather than just pulling it out and throwing in a skip in i'm going to transplant them now the best way to do it is soak them with water that way the plant goes through less shock put them straight into the pot back fill it with potting mix and water them so you get the drift they need plenty of water so they don't go through shock if you're going to put a skip bin on the road you need to check with the council there's a very good chance you need to get a permit [Music] with the garden cleared up we have a blank canvas to work with you and i are big fans of doing the dark fences aren't we because look how nice when you put put the greenery in front it just really shows it off so we're going to use greys as well for the front of the house now stu and mel have told us they want a coastal theme so to achieve that look we'll add crisp white trims and i'm thinking of boardwalk for the front part just like you'd see at the beach with heaps of strappy leaf grasses and some bench seats to go with a new picket fence there you go there's the house there's the house there's the garden all of this might seem just a little bit overwhelming but you know any of these projects would be ideal to tackle over the weekend especially painting so many houses have powder coated aluminium windows these ones mission brown now the usual thing for people who are renovating is to rip these out but there is a better way you can in fact paint powder coated aluminium as with anything you paint preparation is the key so the first thing to do is make sure you thoroughly mask up your windows using a fairly fine grade of sandpaper this is a 180 just give it a light sand across the top dust them away and then the next thing because they're metal is you need to use an etch primer this is a spray that goes over the metal and prepares it for the top coat of color [Music] well the edge primer is nice and dry so now we can start introducing our accent color of white so i've gone for a satin enamel in a high performance spray paint this one is specially intended to go over metal [Music] you must know by now that paint is probably my favorite part of any makeover incredible transformations are done simply with a coat of paint [Music] how amazing is our little house looking already a couple of coats of paint and it has been completely transformed we don't even have the garden done yet and already i'm loving it [Music] now one last thing that i'm doing now is just painting these steps to tie them in with that color scheme i'm using a matte finish non-slip paving paint this one's oil-based so it sticks really well i think this gray combined with all of these other shades makes it look contemporary and very classic so the fence panels are gone but i've left the posts now i'm still gonna run a string line through because i might be able to move them over and straighten up a little bit what i'm gonna do is put a rail on the front [Music] and paint the post before i put the pickets on it's always a good idea to put the coats of paint on your pickets before you put them up that way i can get all the nooks and crannies now this is about as close as it gets to a cheap picker fence we're not replacing the post they're staying in place so we're just buying the rails and the picket a little tip when you put your picket on bring it up to your string line find the string line where it's moving and then come down about one millimeter so you can see air between the two sunnies [Music] i'm sure i'm not alone in saying you do a picket fence very well stop it you pick colors better than anyone now do you notice something about the stairs the first step's this big it's like a baby step then the next one's massive and then the other two match so i'm actually going to go over the top of this on top of this one which will make this massive one the same as these other two and square it up i didn't need to paint that two out of three but i think also we need to do something here so i've got a plan for there and your fence has given me a little bit of inspiration awesome i can lift heavy things can you like string lines yeah this is hard work not everyone can do this really see no knots often it's not what you take away from a building that can make a big difference it's what you can add those columns for instance well they kind of do nothing at the moment we could easily have removed them but you know one being a little bit taller than the other they don't match i thought we'd make something of them and give them purpose so an awning will do just the trick and we can make that easily it's pretty simple build i'm just using exterior grade treated pine i've undercoated it to make it a bit easier to paint afterwards and it's a basic construction triangle at either end and some beams across the middle to connect the two together [Music] oh just in time so i'm going to hand this over to greg now to install above the doorway while i get busy with the roof now the material we're using for this is actually marine ply it's so good to use outside because it's going to be moisture stable for the underside i've painted it white really good idea because again it's going to be like the ceiling and it's going to bounce light around and just brighten up that whole entryway now for the top of it i want to clad it so it ties in with jason's fence so i've got this cut to size so it's just the timber planks but where he's got that wide gap instead i'm putting another piece of timber over the top kind of looks like shingles and it adds a really nice texture and profile now everything gets a coat of paint and then we can put it all together above the door [Music] so [Music] it's looking good already i love this awning it's so much fun adds a lot of character to the building don't you think there you go greg this is where it ties in with jason's fence but instead of doing the same color as the fence that lovely soft gray i've chosen to go the darker gray which is the same as what we've done for the gutter and also the side fences that makes it feel really balanced and complete i think it's added a really great touch to the house so the front path is going to look more like a boardwalk which means it's going to feel like you're at the beach now if you stain them or paint them before you put them into place it means you can do all the edges nice and easy i'm standing up straight not killing my knees now i'm putting stain in with a roller normally you do with one of those expensive wool mat things it doesn't really matter the treated pine sort of sucks it in at all different consistencies so but when it's over the whole lot it'll look uniform it's just like building a deck but instead of using a decking board i'm using the sleepers now to keep these in place i'm using these anchor screws they work just like dynabolt what you do is you drill a hole into the masonry just slightly smaller than the screw the screw goes in forces itself in and if you want to get it out good luck set up a string line so i can lay out all the sleepers and see how they sit before i screw any down the speed that this goes down and gets put together compared to doing a traditional paving job or even doing a deck just with your normal boards is priceless we've done this in about 90 minutes where if it was decking boards onto a subframe it'd probably be a day's work no pre-drilling just straight into the treated pine i'm using big heavy bugles it's going to keep it all in place and it looks fantastic so asleep is about 11 bucks down at bunnings this is some of the cheapest materials you can work with ah nice work it's nice and wide and it's inviting and inviting in the front door means friendly nice looks like a boardwalk just like you said a beach boardwalk yeah now i'm sure you've got a plan but these look like a pimple on a pumpkin they're too tall too skinny they don't match what we've done i've got it taken care of all right so the plan is what we're going to do is bring it out to about this width clad it down below so we get that nice white accent going through if we put tiles on top you can do that green thing that you do so well plus green thing playing it out on top all right it's a one-woman one-man job so i'll hold this group square that's better laughing i'm getting there we're in see it's not going anywhere yeah all right so like concrete sheet over the top of this if you want to tile yeah absolutely so should we concrete it you know how to do it i've seen you do that on better homes and gardens there you go i'll get the hose [Music] don't breathe it in let's wash that stuff into there geez he's really turned that on and well i don't want to go crazy no it's even cause you're bossy aren't you you're crazy no i don't want to go too crazy i want to just properly do it properly i need lots of water you realize we're sounding like an old married couple i think what's great about this is it's a really good cosmetic makeover you can actually do this if you've got something like a little ugly plinth like this to the side of your door just a bit of cement sheeting over the top just held in place by some timber gives it a whole new look it's all about proportion isn't it jase it is this will give it scale okay so we just cut that in so that it fits into that column [Music] so what this will do is just neaten off the edge here just a little bit of aluminium angle just to cover up where the two surfaces meet it's pretty ugly so as a quick cover-up then we can clad over the top and the tile goes on there [Music] so we're going to put matching boards across the front of this just like the picket and up here on the top so i need about 20 mil at the front okay if you could finish off the pickets on this plant sure i'm just gonna get started on this one all right okay nice [Music] to stitch up why didn't i think of it for most families the front door usually ends up the dumping ground for shoes and coats and hats and all sorts of other bits and pieces so when you're doing a makeover there is no reason at all why you can't make it pretty as well as practical i want to create something in our entry hall where they can sit down they can put the shoes away so to make life easy i've started with one of these it's a flat pack cube cabinet you can buy this from bunnings and to dress it up and give it a little bit of reinforcement i'm using pine i've already stained it so it ties in with our color scheme i've got a couple of pieces one on either end one across the top and the bottom so it's clad uniformly all the way around [Music] just one more thing i want to add to this unit and that is some lockable caster wheels that way it's really practical when there are leaves underneath you can simply unlock the wheels and draw it out and give it a good sweep how would you like to build a little love seed or bench for the price of exactly nothing well with the off cuts i've got from the boardwalk i've laminated them together by using bugles now i've got my two screws here so when i put the next one on i'll put my two screws here i create two of them this one here is pre-stained and ready to go and then a three metre sleeper cut in half laid over the top [Music] screw the top down and voila you've got a beautiful little bench and this one works particularly well in a front yard chris is that heavy no one's going to pitch it join me [Music] how good is that the furniture matches the boardwalk well that's the shoes tidied up now for the coats and hats honestly you can make something as simple as a shelf it just needs to be a right angle out of two pieces of pine one there just joined and you can add some metal hooks all the way along if you want to make it a bit fancier just keep building it up get a slightly narrower piece of pine that gives it some shape if you like a bit of curve you can get these moldings in different shapes this one's called a scotia pop that in there you could even add one of these little decorative beading trims really it's up to you you can just keep layering them once it's painted it'll look very fancy and just like one you buy in the shops now it might sound funny because the tree's got all this surface around the side but there is definitely a face to most plants and it's just the way it looks the best it might be in the nursery where it was on the edge and it got a little bit more sun than everyone else and it's just it's good-looking side you know how models have got the one look well this tree's look is that and so i've got it facing the most common spot in the garden where you're going to view it from and that's the gate when you're walking in that's a good looking tree she's impressed so we're going for a beach theme we've got the sand already the boardwalk all we need is the plants and the water now we've got lots of grasses here because when you're at the beach or along the coast you see lots of bank binding grasses we've got lemandra and then as far as the plants go coastal rosemary you can shape that up in balls or you can let it free form it'll max out at about 1.5 meters so in a small space like this give it a haircut a couple of times a year and keep it compact and woolly bush if you're ever in a nursery and you see a woolly bush go and touch it because it's really soft like the tail of a kitten touch it soft like the tail of the kittens [Music] and a couple of store-bought pots with a power and a dicondra silver falls over the edge really frame the front door [Music] mel and stu are so lucky to have this little porch as an entryway it's covered it's sheltered and the perfect place for a coat and hat rack so greg's just going to hold this in position we've leveled it up so we know where we're going we put some wall fixings in so this is going to be very strong bubbles in the middle perfect good work here is just marked up on either side of that fixing with my hook that way it'll disguise the hole so one less hole to fill i love that that's a great little coat rack combined with a bench seat underneath with plenty of storage what was once a dark pokey little porch now looks bright and inviting oh there they come oh my gosh that's your house welcome home absolutely amazing it's the same place yeah does it remind you of the beach coast it does so coastal come in and enjoy oh wow nice wide path nice walk hand in hand to the front door now rather than behind each other fantastic it's beautiful oh i just love the colors um and i love the greys like i absolutely love the gray i think this just proves the power of paint and just a few little clever disguises you can work with what you have and it actually looks beautiful i think it has character now yeah i'm thrilled yeah i like to think so i'm moving in yeah it looks amazing so you've got this nice entrance way now and in there we've actually got storage you can hang your coats and your hats in there so it's actually a useful area as well doubles as a cell you can lock them in there when they're done [Music] i wouldn't call it a lawn before but what you had before you would have spent more time on it and got no result yeah with this if you spend five minutes on it once a month yep it's gonna look great amazing happy yeah we're very happy yeah well done guys great home even better now you

Channel: Great Home Ideas

Views: 156,030

Rating: 4.9144654 out of 5

Keywords: Great Home Ideas, DIY, Food, Cooking, How To, Lifestyle, Lifestyle Design, Gardening, DIY Hacks, DIY Tips, Furniture Hacks, Pet Care, Better Homes & Gardens, BHAG, Tara Dennis, How To DIY, How 2, front of house makeover, street appeal, front-of-house makeover, budget makeover, Jason Hodges

Id: v-alQFhzzng

Length: 21min 32sec (1292 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 31 2021