Enhance Your Home's Style with Exterior Details
Enhance the exterior of your home by borrowing details from a classical architectural style. We've selected four popular house styles and gathered products to show you how to replicate each look.
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New Orleans, like many port cities, boasts a mix of home styles with influences from around the world. Architectural styles include the double-gallery house, shown here, most popular from 1820 to 1850. This style of home has distinct French details, a side-gabled or hipped roof, and an asymmetrical placement of windows and doors. It is traditionally raised on piers and can have a brick, wood, or stucco exterior.
The homes and courtyard gardens of New Orleans feature iron balconies, railings, fences, and gates, made even more attractive with elaborate scrolls and finials. Get this look with the Essex Garden Gate, which stands 5 feet tall and fits a 3-foot-wide opening with room for hinges and a latch.
Essex Garden Gate from Amazing Gates
$299
800/234-3952
amazinggates.com
Scrolls and the look of old-world iron (it's actually recycled aluminum) make this hose holder an appropriate detail for a New Orleans-style home.
Whitehall Perrault Hose Holder from MailBoxWorks
$84
800/824-9985
mailboxworks.com
Just under 2 feet tall, the Casa Marseille hanging light includes clear hammered glass, rich detailing, and a black finish, and would fit right in near the entry of a New Orleans-style home.
Casa Marseille Outdoor Hanging Light from John Timberland Lighting
$159.99
800/782-1967
lampsplus.com
Even if your home does not have iron fencing or railings, you can add a touch of New Orleans with iron window boxes. They adjust to almost any size railing, or they can be wall-mounted.
Over-The-Rail Iron Window Box from Smith and Hawken
$49
800/940-1170
smithandhawken.com
Modern homes share a common goal: Keep it simple. These homes boast clean lines, bold angles, and flat unadorned surfaces. Often, they will marry natural materials (such as the wood plank siding here) with metals and glass for a softened industrial look.
Modern homes often make use of traditional plank siding in distinctly contemporary ways, such as the horizontal planks shown here. This fiber-cement siding comes in a variety of textures and can be painted once a sealer and primer have been applied.
Hardieplank Lap Siding from James Hardie Building Products
Prices vary
888/542-7343
jameshardie.com
For those who prefer modern design, minimal looks equal maximum style. This 16-inch titanium-finish outdoor wall light makes a smart accent.
Atlantis Dark Sky Outdoor Wall Light from Hinkley Lighting
$269.99
800/782-1967
lampsplus.com
These clean, sans serif numbers are made of weather resistant Corian mounted on black tiles.
Weather Resistant House Numbers from Eichler Numbers
$60 for two digits, $90 for five digits
eichlernumbers.com
Sleek and crisp, the vertical stainless-steel mailbox is a prime example of form following function: an important plank of the modern style platform.
Stainless Steel Mailbox from Salsbury Industries
$70
800/624-5269
mailboxes.com
Available in black or matte gray, these wire edgers define pathways and contain plants with simple geometric style.
Modular Edgers from Smith & Hawken
$24
800/940-1170
smithandhawken.com
In the early 1900s, a revival of Spanish Colonial architecture took hold in the United States, bringing a style based on early Spanish construction in the Americas into the modern era. Loosely called Mediterranean style, the Spanish Colonial Revival look includes a smooth stucco exterior, chimneys, and a low-pitched roof of red clay tile. Other hallmarks of the style are board-and-batten shutters, arched doorways, courtyards and glazed tiles on the floors and walls.
These tiles have a bricklike look that is ideal for porches and enclosed courtyards.
Vesubio-Klinker Tile from Gres Catalan
$1.97 to $4.36 per tile
spaintiles.info
Thanks to its rugged, hammered-iron design, this old-world-inspired, flush-mount lantern fits with the Spanish Colonial Revival look.
Villa Escala Outdoor Flush Pocket Lantern from Minka Lavery
$134.91
800/782-1967
lampsplus.com
Details such as a mail slot can add a finishing touch to the simple lines of Mediterranean architecture.
Adena Mail Slot from The Craftsman Homes collection
$327.95
509/535-5098
crafthome.com
The common theme among Victorian-style homes is devotion to detail and embellishments. With modern building techniques starting to take hold in the mid-19th century, builders could create houses with irregular floor plans, turrets, overhangs, and other novel features. They could also get mass-produced millwork, introducing the scrolls and other fanciful details that distinguish Victorian homes.
This stone planter is cast from an antique cut-stone original in England, giving each copy the detail that is a hallmark of Victorian style. The surface is moss-friendly and ages gracefully.
Somerset Pot from Gardener's Supply Co.
$74.95
888/833-1412
gardeners.com/bhg
Whether cut from wood, as on original Victorian homes, or crafted from paintable cellular PVC (as these modern embellishments are), balusters, brackets, and gable decorations add a touch of gingerbread to Victorian architecture.
Balusters and Corner Brackets from Vintage Woodworks
Prices vary by size
903/356-2158
vintagewoodworks.com
Roof shingles are a home's crowning glory. The overlapping geometric pattern of these shingles (shown in Brownstone) suits the Victorian look.
Carriage House Roof Shingles from Certainteed
Prices vary
800/782-8777
certainteed.com
With a curvaceous bowl and textured glass panels, this 19-inch outdoor fixture can illuminate a Victorian entry.
Lynnewood Garden Outdoor Wall Light from Kichler
$209.01
800/782-1967
lampsplus.com
Just over 7 inches tall, this lacquered, polished-brass door knocker evokes Victorian style with its detailed base plate and bearded Neptune face.
Neptune Door Knocker from Brass Accents Inc.
$96
shop4classics.com
