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17 Front yard curb appeal ideas on a budget. Plus our front yard makeover with before and after photos. From overgrown grass to colorful Spanish Lavender.
It feels like just the other day we moved into this house. But judging by our lack of curb appeal, it’s been more like four years.
This eye sore didn’t just happen overnight though. It started with the weeds popping up through the garden barrier. Then came overgrown monkey grass and faded mulch.
It was the result of 4 years of sub par maintenance and the words “we’ll do it next year.” were said more than once.
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Table of Contents:
- 17 Curb Appeal Ideas- List
- Front Door Ideas
- Garage Curb Appeal Ideas
- Front Yard and Garden Ideas
- Pressure Washing Ideas
- Real Curb Appeal Makeover On a Budget
- Before and After Photos
17 CURB APPEAL IDEAS ON A BUDGET
Front Door Ideas
- Paint the front door
Painting the front door is an easy way to update the look of your home, on a budget. You can check out how we painted our front door and the materials used -How to paint a front metal door– Step by step guide
- New welcome mat
- Clean the front windows
- Window boxes and hanging plants
- Front door patio cushion refresh
- How to clean outdoor patio cushions- Easy Tutorial
- DIY wreath
Garage Curb Appeal Ideas
- Add garage windows and hardware magnets
- Update faded light fixtures using spray paint
We gave our garage an instant makeover by spray painting our garage lighting to a matte black color. It only took one afternoon and we masked off the area so we didn’t need to take them down. -How to paint faded outdoor light fixtures without taking them down
Front Yard and Garden Ideas
- Solar lights on pathways
- Decorative planters
- DIY trellis with climbing vines
- Maintain the lawn and edge the pathways
- Bird Bath
- Stepping stones
- Plant a tree with DIY tree ring with
- How to build a tree ring on a slope
- Add new mulch
- Decorative garden fence
- Bird feeders
Pressure Washing Ideas
- Pressure wash the front walkway
- Pressure wash brick siding
- Side fencing
- Update the old mailbox to look like new
Our brick column mailbox needed some help! So we cleaned it up, spray painted it black and added a door flag. -Old brick column mailbox makeover with flag– Beginners guide
Related Posts:
Backyard Swing Set DIY For Big Kids
How To Paint Faded Garage Lights Without Taking Them Down
YARD MAKEOVER ON A BUDGET- BEFORE AND AFTER
Table of Contents:
- How To Plan Your Budget
- Curb Appeal Weekend Project
- Mandevilla Plant with Budget Friendly DIY Garden Trellis
- Before and After Curb Appeal Photos
Next year finally became this year, but we had to do it on a budget! As much as I like those gorgeous before and after photos of mature trees being planted and a professional landscaper being called in, this isn’t that.
This is two homeowners digging up giant monkey grass bushes and disagreeing about how much mulch is actually needed. (Spoiler alert. One of us was wrong.)
How To Plan Your Budget
- Plan your budget
Before you head to the home improvement store, plan you budget. Decide what you’d like to accomplish and make a detailed list of things you’ll need before you get to the store.
Going into any store without a plan is a sure way to accidentally overspend and you’ll end up forgetting a few things you really need.
- Decide what you’ll be reusing
Decide on a few things that you can reuse. Perhaps you have a few flower or garden pots you can reuse but they are not the same color. Instead of buying new ones maybe you can spray paint the old ones so they are more cohesive.
- New weed barrier vs. No weed barrier
Although we did put down new weed barrier for this project, it’s something that ends up tearing easily and somehow weeds still come through. It might be time to move on and weed when needed.
- Mulch
Take a mental note about how much mulch you’ll need for your project and then add 2. Somehow mulch goes a lot faster than you think.
- Add decor & make compromises
Since we decided to reuse our existing edging, we had just enough in our budget to add solar lights to illuminate pathway.
Curb Appeal Weekend Project
At one point and time I actually liked our monkey grass! However, we had let it become overgrown and it was time to move on.
We tore up the old weed barrier and weeded the entire area. Then we planted the Spanish Lavender along the pathway.
We secured the new weed barrier with garden staples and put back the old edging along the pathway.
After the edging was back in place, we mulched around our lavender and potted our new Mandevilla plants.
Mandevilla Plants with Budget Friendly DIY Garden Trellis
Mandevilla’s are gorgeous vine plants that flower during the spring and summer. Since we have a large brick wall, we wanted some kind of plant or vine to fill that area. We decided to pot the plants in a container so that we could bring him in during the cold winter months.
Being that it’s a vine it needed something to climb on. We had two choices; we could buy a trellis or make a simple trellis. I had pictured a wood V shaped trellis connected with 2×2’s. The DIY project would have cost as much as buying one… until.
In the same aisle as the edging I found a pack of 6 long bamboo sticks for just a few dollars. We bought some wire and made our own DIY trellis for under $5 each.
We then added a bird bath that I found at a discount store and completed the final touches by adding the solar lights along the pathway.
This before and after isn’t as drastic as some. But that’s kind of the point with DIY projects on a budget. It’s a modest update that needed to happen and was one that we could do ourselves in just a weekend.
Before and After Curb Appeal Photos
Not only do we love our modest update so do the birds and bees! We hadn’t even finished our project when this little guy came to visit.
So who was right about the amount of mulch we needed? It was my husband. I was under by about 10 bags! We headed back to the home improvement store to get the extra bags of mulch that we needed, but isn’t that just how home projects go?
Best of luck with your own curb appeal project on a budget and remember that even those small changes can make you fall in love with your front yard again.
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