How much can you do to the outside of a house?

[Anonymous]

We are in the market for a SFH, and the ones in our price range are very nice on the inside, but seem a little dated on the outside. Assuming HOAs are not an issue, what can one have done on just the outside of a house. For example, if the brick looks really old, is there any way to replace the brick? TIA.

[Anonymous]

Replace the bricks? No. But you can whitewash them or cover them in siding, build a porch or portico, upgrade the walkway/driveway materials, switch up the paint colors, install new landscaping, change up your windows, switch out your lighting and door hardware... lots of options for updating and adding curb appeal.

[Anonymous]

Ugh, do not cover bricks in siding!

[Anonymous]

IMO, a porch or portico go a long way to making a flat brick facade look MUCH better. Not cheap, but it can be done and will transform the look. We are planning to add a porch to our flat stucco facade colonial, but we are in a historic district, and to do it right and satisfy the historic review board will cost bank (we are getting quotes for $80-150K) so it's in our 10 year plan. You can do a much less expensive face lift with a portico, more modest porch, or as a PP said, painting the brick. Or some combo of those options. Our neighbors painted their flat red brick facade, which used to look pretty much like a brick box, white and had a porch w/ fan built onto it, and it looks FANTASTIC. GL!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IMO, a porch or portico go a long way to making a flat brick facade look MUCH better. Not cheap, but it can be done and will transform the look. We are planning to add a porch to our flat stucco facade colonial, but we are in a historic district, and to do it right and satisfy the historic review board will cost bank (we are getting quotes for $80-150K) so it's in our 10 year plan. You can do a much less expensive face lift with a portico, more modest porch, or as a PP said, painting the brick. Or some combo of those options. Our neighbors painted their flat red brick facade, which used to look pretty much like a brick box, white and had a porch w/ fan built onto it, and it looks FANTASTIC. GL!

My house would benefit from a new porch added to the front of it. Do you know how much your neighbors paid for their face lift?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IMO, a porch or portico go a long way to making a flat brick facade look MUCH better. Not cheap, but it can be done and will transform the look. We are planning to add a porch to our flat stucco facade colonial, but we are in a historic district, and to do it right and satisfy the historic review board will cost bank (we are getting quotes for $80-150K) so it's in our 10 year plan. You can do a much less expensive face lift with a portico, more modest porch, or as a PP said, painting the brick. Or some combo of those options. Our neighbors painted their flat red brick facade, which used to look pretty much like a brick box, white and had a porch w/ fan built onto it, and it looks FANTASTIC. GL!

My house would benefit from a new porch added to the front of it. Do you know how much your neighbors paid for their face lift?

I don't, but we are getting quotes from $80K to $150K for ours. Our house is larger than theirs, and our facade is flat stucco, which I understand to be harder to work with (in terms of tie-in's, etc.) than brick. My guess is theirs was probably somewhere between $40-80K.

[Anonymous]

Personally, I'd probably whitewash or paint the brick, if the brick was ugly. There are some gorgeous homes in my neighborhood with painted and whitewashed brick.

You could also put in a really nice front door, put on better shutters, do a more upscale roof option when you have to replace the roof, do a front porch, maybe some window boxes with flowers? (I'm planning to replace my ugly fake shutters with better ones and do window boxes, and am considering a front porch, long-term. I have a 1940's cape that is kind of bland but could be very cute.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ugh, do not cover bricks in siding!

+1. You might need to re-point the brick (not cheap), but covering it with siding sounds just crazy

[Anonymous]

Why cover bricks when they are one of the easiest types of siding to maintain? No regular painting or cleaning needed. They will last forever. Instead think about walkways, windows, change porches and other exterior features but covering brick would be a huge mistake.

[Anonymous]

22:18 here - there are some colors of brick that are just fugly instead of charming. So i can see wanting to paint or whitewash them.

Someone bought a tear-down in my neighborhood, put up a giant new brick house in its place. The brick was gorgeous... and then they painted it a creamy white! I was kind of surprised, but hey. I'm not sure I would have done that - it'll cost a fortune to repaint.

[Anonymous]

Ok, where I used to live (in IL), a neighbor had a house with brick on 3 sides. They did a major addition and as part of it, they changed the brick on those 3 sides (not sure what they did in the back). I'm sure it was super expensive but they picked a much better brick color. My point is that I've seen brick replaced.