Exterior Decorating on a Budget By Kathleen WilsonMany times we are so busy decorating
interior of our home , we forget about view most people see first…the outside! Perhaps we all believe improvements to exterior of home must be expensive. Not true! What a better place to showcase your clever creativity than where every passerby can see!
Your best friend here is a building site. Find out where they are building new homes in your area, and go talk to contractor in charge of site. Most of these sites have scrap piles where they discard huge amounts of materials they can’t use, either because they aren’t right size, a mistake was made, or a myriad of other reasons. Ask contractor if you can help yourself to their scrap pile, most are more than willing to let you.
Here you can find large pieces of ½ inch siding, scrap wood, broken tiles, vinyl flooring remnants, and possibly even leftover paint or countertop material. Look at everything with eye of budget decorator, you can make something out of all these things!
Use siding and scrap wood to make garden furniture, decorative shutters for your windows, or as architectural elements on your existing features. For instance, we have several large 6x6 columns on our porch, very plain lumber. We are using scrap 1x4 and 1x2 to add wrap around moldings on these columns, and painting them to contrast. It looks like a custom porch column! You could add simple shapes as appliqués to doors, gable areas, or empty walls.
