17 DIY Outdoor Projects Guaranteed to Boost Curb Appeal

By Jessica Bennett
It's never too late to transform a lackluster exterior into a neighborhood showstopper. Steer your home's exterior in a more attractive direction with a few cost-effective outdoor projects. Try these DIY exterior ideas this weekend for an instant curb appeal upgrade.
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Build DIY Patio Furniture

Dress up your front porch or patio with furniture you can make yourself. This outdoor project uses decking boards, pipes, and connectors to fashion a patio chair with industrial style. Add a patterned outdoor pillow for a cozy touch.

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Install a Railing Planter

Transform basic window boxes into a custom railing planter for your front porch. Adjust the design to fit your railing and plant it with your favorite flowers. You can accomplish this weekend outdoor project in just a few hours.

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Paint Your Front Door

A splash of color can do wonders for your home's curb appeal. Paint your front door a bold hue to instantly refresh your facade. Be sure to choose a color that complements your home's building materials and landscaping.

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Create Colorful Planters

Carson Downing

Add color and modern style to your front yard with these DIY geometric planters. Made from corrugated plastic, they can easily be customized to be any size you choose. Opt for bold colors for an eye-catching front-yard accent that showcases your favorite plants.

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Add Fresh Fretwork

Decorative railings featuring intricate fretwork add architectural detail to a boring stoop. We used a mix of pressure-treated 6×6s, 2×4s, 2×2 spindles, and deck boards to construct these custom structures before priming and painting. We bolted them to the concrete and brick at the stoop and created footings in the ground for the bottom posts. Consult your local building codes before you start.

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Lay a Brick Path

Build a paver walkway to lead visitors to your front door. Versatile 4×8-inch Holland brick pavers are an inexpensive solution when you need to cover a lot of ground. (Ours cost less than 50 cents each on sale.) Customize your path with a pattern such as herringbone, basket weave, or concentric squares.

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Construct DIY Shutters

Lend classic appeal to characterless windows with house shutters. These cedar shutters are an easy-to-customize DIY project you can do with a few basic tools. Paint them a fresh color for even more curb appeal.

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Build a DIY Window Box

For an easy outdoor project you can accomplish this weekend, make a DIY window box from cedar boards. Drill holes for drainage and attach it beneath a window with brackets. Plant your window box with colorful plants that will trail over the side.

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Add Interest to Your Garden

Obelisks (built from 2x2s) add height to a garden. Miter the post ends at 7-degree angles to achieve a trapezoidal shape with a square base. Top the structure with a geometric cap made from metal scraps.

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Grow Your Garden Up

Plant vines to expand your garden vertically and increase visibility from the curb. Choose flowering varieties to bring color and texture to your front landscaping. To allow vines to climb on a garden obelisk, thread wire horizontally through screw eyes on the legs.

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Make a DIY Wreath

Add pops of color to a twisted twig wreath from a crafts store. Wrap medium-weight yarn tightly around twigs within the wreath, securing the ends with a clear-drying crafts glue. Choose yarn in colors that complement your existing exterior color scheme.

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Update a Welcome Mat

Give a welcome mat an eye-catching makeover with this pattern inspired by a vintage kilim rug. Create a stencil and fill the designs with varying combos of exterior paint colors. To keep it budget-friendly, use leftover paint or sample pots.

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Emphasize House Numbers

Make your house numbers stand out with a modern plaque. This outdoor DIY project takes just an hour to put together and delivers a big personality boost to your front door. Paint the sign and house numbers a vibrant color to make them really pop.

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Decorate Outdoor Planters

Use stamps to give an old resin planter a major upgrade. Apply a primer made for plastics, then spray-paint it black. Cut a kitchen sponge into a triangle and dip it into exterior latex paint, blotting off the excess on a paper towel. Stamp around the rim and let dry.

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Refresh Your Mailbox

Update a run-of-the-mill mailbox with a surpise inside. Tape off the exterior with painters tape, and spray-paint the inside in a splashy hue. We designed a stencil using favorite fonts and cut it from vinyl using an electronic die-cutting machine, but you also could trim a phrase by hand. Remove the letters, position the stencil on the lid, and fill in with paint.

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Paint Geometric Planters

Bring the geometric trend home with a little exterior primer and paint. Tape off a fiberclay planter with flat sides from corner to corner on adjacent sides for an asymmetric look. We filled ours with "Little Lucky Peach Glow" lantana.

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Install a Hose Hangup

Trade your basic garden hose reel for a more streamlined solution. To corral a hose in style, set a 4x4 pressure-treated wood post one foot into the ground using fast-setting concrete. Top it with a post cap, paint the assembly glossy black, and install a wall-mounted metal hose rack.

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