You know what "curb appeal" is. It's that certain something that makes a potential home buyer linger at one house and not even ask to get out of the car at another.
It's the way the house sits on the lot, welcoming visitors, offering its face to the world, like a friendly smile.
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It's the way the front door, the windows, the brick or siding and the roofline all seem to fit together. The way the vines clamber up the fence or twine around the light pole at the end of the sidewalk. The beds of roses, the clutch of day lilies, all carefully placed.
You know. It's often why some houses sell faster than others.
Of course, in this crazy market, some buyers will take anything with a curb. But how a house appeals to visitors from the outside still matters, says the National Association of Realtors' Iverson Moore. "What's inside is important . . . but if it doesn't look good, people won't stop outside and decide to go in."
And curb appeal isn't just for home sellers. A flashier exterior can make you feel better about living inside.
"Curb Appeal" is even the name of a popular show on Home & Garden Television. The challenge is to transform a tired or plain-Jane house into a showstopper. (The trouble, for Washington viewers, is that the houses are all in the San Francisco Bay area, close to the show's production company.)
Executive producer Mila Holt said the show looks for "really fun, transformative low-cost ideas . . . that have a big punch, like building an arbor in a certain way that gives the effect of adding a front porch but without the cost of adding a front porch. Or resurfacing a walk to look like stone."
The show came about, she said, because "people are hungry for these things."
So how else how can you get "it"? What if your house looks like every other house in the neighborhood? That happens on plenty of streets around the District and its close-in suburbs, where cookie-cutter developments popped up in the 1940s and 1950s, when speed of delivery and not design was key.
The Real Estate section offered its own challenge to local architects and designers. We found two houses in older neighborhoods where developers sold simple or plain designs and only a couple of models. Both houses have the original facades.
The challenge was to provide some modest makeover ideas for $5,000 to $7,500.
The budget was set low to fit the pocketbooks of those who aren't up to a pop-up, renovation or teardown. While the first idea was to limit spending to $2,500 to $5,000, most of the architects and design-build firms contacted said that number was unrealistic. Some who passed on the challenge said little can be done for under $10,000, or even $20,000, because landscaping materials and labor costs have jumped so high. Others passed because they were too busy.
But the six who volunteered said that if the homeowner does the work, a $5,000 to $7,500 budget would allow for enough changes to give a tired older home new pizazz.
The Center-Hall Colonial
This house in South Arlington was built about 1939, according to the longtime owner. He has never changed the facade. In this style of home, the entry door opens to the main floor, with steps leading upstairs to bedrooms. The living room is to one side of the entry and the dining room to the other. The neighborhood has many similar houses, most of which have porticos over the front door.
• Solution 1
An entry roof is the key to Dan Porter's redesign.
