The first thing people see when they browse through 100’s of houses online is the front of your house. And what’s the first thing they see when the cruise up with the Realtor or are patiently waiting for the realtor to unlock the door?  Curb appeal!

Curb appeal can be a tough one depending on the current condition of your front yard.  A front yard and the front stoop are where potential buyers will wait while the realtor fiddles with all of the keys or with the “supra” (that funny coded lock box thing) at the door.  So you need to make sure people have someone wonderful to look at.

 Stand back and take a gander at the land.  Do you have flower beds?  Do you need them?  Depending on how much you want to spend it may be beneficial to hire a professional landscaper to put in some small tasteful flowerbeds.  If you’re on a tight budget like we were (hello student loan debt!) then you’ll work with what you have.

 For us, we had some nice looking flowerbeds already thanks to the previous owner.  But some of the bushes were out of control, the mulch needed refreshed and the weeds were aplenty.  We also needed something a little more that would make the front of the house POP.

1. Trim those bushes and trees! The year before we purchased some Toro trimmers at one of my favorite stores, Menards, for under $70 with their rebates.  I pulled those out and my hand trimmers and went to town like a modified Edward Scissor Hands (modified only because I couldn’t figure out how to lash the trimmer to my arms J).  I took a good 6 inches off of all of the bushes and thought ahead this time and make sure I had my drop cloth surrounding each bush making the cleanup as easy as possible.  Make sure step back from time to time and aren’t cutting holes into bushes.  Remember, you can always take off more, but you can’t put back what you already took off…a lesson I should have taught Doug when I let him “trim” ¼ inch off of my hair.  That turned into 4 inches of unevenness just in time for my first Mother’s Day!  Yowza!
2. Weed, weed, weed. The neighborhood children definitely come in handy here…no not the ones that smoke weed, but the entrepreneurial ones that are looking for extra money for upcoming amusement park trips or that new Xbox game.  So I asked a coworker if their son would be interested and he said absolutely.  Now the key here is you need to make sure they are first capable of the task and have some attention to detail.  They need to be taught what they are pulling is indeed a weed and not a beautiful plant just not in bloom at the time and they need to be shown how to get the roots.  If you don’t get the roots, they’ll be back the next day.

You might be asking why we just don’t use chemicals to kill the existing weeds and that would be a great question.  First we have pets and a young baby.  Though the labels says it’s safe after it’s dried, we’d prefer to limit that use as much as possible.  I’m not opposed to it, but would rather use it in moderation.  Second though, we had tons of little growth and really wanted to get at the root of the problem (ha,ha) and then do follow ups with a little chemical action.  We knew we were moving early September and in the event the house didn’t sell before then, we didn’t want to have someone come over daily to spray them down.

3. It’s amazing what a difference mulch can make.  We chose to buy it by the bag load because that was what was easiest for us.  If you choose to get it in bulk delivered just make sure you protect your driveway where they drop it off.  Otherwise you’ll also be scrubbing the driveway of mulch.

We chose to do a dark colored mulch after seeing our light colored mulch of last year.  That meant that we also had to collect all of last year’s mulch and dispose of it.  The light colored mulch looked cheap to me and reminded me of straw.  A dark mulch (chocolate or black) gives it a rich look and really makes the plants stand out.  Just make sure you’re tidy as you put it down and that you completely cover the area.  We found that we needed way more mulch than we had calculated and ended up with 30 bags total!  But in the end I think it was worth it!

4. What about that front stoop? The front stoop is where people are really going to be hanging out.  I spent some time making up very large and nice pots of plants with bright colors and we bought a new doormat that looked thick, elegant and expensive (on sale at Lowes for $16!!!).  Then we visited a local nursery that had beautiful hanging baskets and bought 6 to hang as accents in the front yard and at that front door.  We worked together with the owner and explained our needs.  We needed a plant that would thrive in the Saint Louis heat, not need a lot of water since we’d be moving and would continue to look beautiful.  We opted for some Portulaca (succulent type plants that were GORGEOUS) and some Vinca (looked like Impatients to me).  By far to do it again, I’d get the Portulaca.  Their only downside is that the flowers do close in the evening so if you have late visitors they don’t look at bright.

We also spent time scrubbing the house at the front door and making sure the front door looked spotless.  I’d have loved to have put a wreath up, but the way the door is the wreath would have just gotten in the way.

Each day, you need to again assess your front yard and stoop.  Does the stoop need swept?  Plants and recently cut bushes need watered?  We found that in the heat they needed watered every day.  If your yard is browning maybe set up a sprinkler to run for a bit in the early morning.  What about those weeds?  If you do decide to use chemicals on them remember to clean up their dead wilted leaves from the mulch.  They’ll really show up if you don’t catch them early.  Make sure you bag your grass when you mow or they might track it in and make sure you edge every time.  It’s the details that make your house memorable.