Add a Little Romance and a Lot of Green

By Mary Ellen Slayter
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 29, 2007

From the outside, it looks the same as any other house in the District's Northeast neighborhood of Eckington. Which is just fine, unless you're trying to sell the place.

Tia Butler, the owner, had made improvements over the five years she owned the three-bedroom, one-bathroom rowhouse, including ripping out a chain-link fence and replacing a crumbling concrete retaining wall with brick. Attempts at gardening, however, weren't so successful. She said of the lone bush out front: "It once had a mate."

Bulter's house needed "curb appeal," that extra something that makes home shoppers hit the brakes and want to step inside for a look around.

We asked Sandy Clinton, a landscape architect with Clinton & Associates in Hyattsville, for advice on boosting the house's curb appeal. The work had to cost less than $1,000, assuming the seller did most of the work herself, and it had to be possible to complete it in a weekend.

Clinton said the biggest weakness of the house was the harshness of the front brick retaining wall. There's nothing to soften that space, she said. "It really needs something living."

Another issue was the color of the house itself. "All the painted surfaces lack warmth. There no real accent that one could focus their attention on."

Clinton aimed for a "more romantic look." She wanted to bring attention to the front door, a solid feature itself and a spot would-be buyers would gravitate toward anyway.

To do that, she would first open a few cans of paint: dark putty for the window and porch trim, tan for the columns, and terra cotta for the door

A $25 mission-style lamp from Home Depot adds polish. Painting the home's address on the glass transom window is another easy, classy upgrade.

Clinton offered these other suggestions to make Butler's house more eye-catching:

· Butler might have torn out her eyesore fence, but she couldn't do much about the neighbors' fences -- except to hide them. Clinton suggested sky pencil hollies ( Ilex crenata) to screen them off and provide a little privacy. The modest-size evergreen works particularly well in skinny spaces.

· The fences weren't the only thing that needed hiding. Clinton suggested transplanting the euonymus from the yard to the back of the house to screen the utility boxes there.

· For accents, Clinton would put to work the plant containers Butler already owns. Annuals such as petunias offer immediate impact. "Because she already has all those pots, she can really make use of them in a quick way." As an alternative, Butler could pick up inexpensive new pots made of PVC that look like terra cotta or stone.

· To soften the brick of the front porch wall and provide some visual interest, Clinton would put in three cherry laurels ( Prunus laurocerasus).

· To soften the front retaining wall and bring people in from the sidewalk, Clinton suggests a cotoneaster ( Cotoneaster salicifolius).

· A flowering dogwood ( Cornus florida"Cherokee princess") gives the house scale, shade and a framed view of the front door.

· Lily turf ( Liriope spicata) fills in as ground cover.

· Cover the rest of the yard with lawn. Sod provides instant green.

Does your house need a boost in its curb appeal before hitting the market? Send an e-mail torealestate@washpost.com.