20 Exterior Entryway Designs with Charming Curb Appeal

Wraparound porches add charm, dimension, and outdoor living potential to exterior entryway designs. This traditional Victorian-style home benefitted from a front porch remodel that created a shady spot to relax along the front of the house. White trim and railings emphasize the entrance, making the front door a focal point of the home's highly decorative facade.

Before, a lack of architectural features, such as an overhang or stoop, left the front door feeling lost and floating in the home's facade. Now, this exterior entryway demonstrates that even the smallest details can make a big difference when it comes to improving curb appeal. A small arch above the front door offers visual emphasis to the entry. In addition, bright white trim around the windows and at the roofline give subtle contrast to the warm gray color scheme.

Before, tiny windows and a nondescript color scheme stripped all personality from this small home. Post-renovation, the exterior entryway of this home is brighter and more welcoming, thanks to a single large gable, which replaced tiny dormers, and an extended portico, which draws attention to the front entry. In addition, a revamped, simplified color scheme (white accented by muted gray) and more sophisticated landscaping, with low trimmed shrubs and distinguished, overized pavers, gives this mid-20th century home a decidedly contemporary feel.

For the most part, this brick home's entryway details worked well together, but a boring swath of ordinary lawn didn't match the elegance and grace of this home's architecture. Now, a wide, stone front walkway gives a feeling of discovery and importance to the home, and a formal collection of boxwood shrubs adds a touch of graciousness to the yard. On the facade, removal of first-floor shutters, new front windows, and redone brick details on the second story helped to better tie the two floors together.

Outdoor living spaces are often placed at the back of a home, but there's a certain charm and value in adding them to the front landscape. This Colonial-style home broke up its static front with an elegant pergola and paved area that leads from the front door to garage, enabling the homeowners to better enjoy their neighborhood. Narrow plantings also soften the view, and a front door with side window panels gives more presence to the exterior entryway.

Before, worn-out materials, a skimpy front porch, and an awkward step-up to the front door made this bungalow a pass-by home on the street. After a few updated exterior entryway ideas, this bungalow bears little resemblance to its previous incarnation. A wider overhang shelters a remade front porch, with gracious columns sheathed in paint and brick. Multipane windows with wide trim replaced the old versions, and a new stained front door and a charming picket fence announce both entry and border to passersby. Black details provide balance and grounding to the mostly neutral color scheme.

With no finished upper level and awkward straight-angle brickwork, the original structure lacked historic appeal. To gain more family space, the homeowners of this circa-1934 brick Tudor added a finished upper level, which also gave them more room to flex their design muscles on the exteriors. A new bumped-out entrance follows the elegant curve of the door, and a muted gray-green base color keeps the expansive exterior facade from feeling too overwhelming. Small pops of red add visual interest and continuity.

Through the years, many of the details that distinguished this home's charming entryway had been lost or covered up. To recapture their appeal, the homeowner first focused on a muted color scheme: a pastel blue gray, muted white, and small hints of gray. Multilayered millwork at the roofline and around windows was re-created, and the brick wall that separates the street from the narrow front yard was painted white, too. In place of an elevated front outdoor space, the area behind the short wall was dug out, allowing for pavers in place of a porch and a few welcoming benches.

A front porch addition revamped this small home's exterior entryway with added character and decorative details. Cottage-style shingle siding and an arched portico offer a warm welcome. Brick pathways lead to the front door, which is painted a glossy shade of red.

Sometimes a slope prevents a homeowner from enjoying outdoor spaces as they should. That was certainly the case with this front yard, where the steep angle had also presented a conundrum for the side yard walkway. Instead of abandoning the area, the homeowners embraced it, adding a short retaining wall and an elegant wrought-iron fence to establish firm borders. Overgrown trees and shrubs were tamed, too, replaced by small-stature shrubs and airy trees that enhanced the traditional shape of the home. A new neutral color scheme covered up the unsightly brick, helping to unify the exterior.

This homely bungalow originally felt hidden by overgrown trees and a carelessly chosen front stoop. For the entryway makeover, the homeowners took charge of the approach to the front door, removing overgrown trees and adding a paved sidewalk lined with pretty flowers. In place of plain, inoperable square windows, they added oversized, multipane versions that flood the interior with light. A small arched covering signals the front door, and a bump-out gives new height to the small home.

Previously hidden under a deep extended roofline, the front door felt unimportant, and old-fashioned colors and materials made the home feel nondescript. After an exterior entryway makeover, new shake shingles and bright white trim around windows and doors add charm to the home's front facade. An extended entry gives presence to the front door, and large concrete blocks (spaced generously thanks to grass borders) play up the organic feel of the new exterior color scheme.

The original millwork, color, and distinguishing features of this home's exterior entryway were trapped in a time warp. The curb appeal upgrade demonstrates what you can accomplish even without a major addition or structural upgrade. The worn-out siding was replaced with a stone pattern on the first floor and warm neutral on the second floor. Muted red shutters offer a pop of color, and cheery flowers replaced a row of boring front yard shrubs. A covered landing highlights the previously unadorned front door, and a dormer offers height and visual interest at the roofline.

There are several key low-cost ways that you can give your home's exterior entryway a boost. Start with color: This brick home made its front door the superstar with a coat of pretty chartreuse that's picked up in the light fixture and on the front door. New house numbers can give your home better street presence, too, as can a collection of pretty containers and flowers that pick up on key colors in the facade's material palette.

Before, a lack of attention to detail and an overgrown landscape kept this historically minded home from shining. For the new entryway design, the homeowners took inspiration from interior improvements to reshape the exterior. A new bonnet-top front door adds a simple decorative element to the stately architectural features of the 1922 Colonial-style home. Simple limestone-edge brick steps also echo the curve in the French doors.

Sometimes all a home needs to boost its curb appeal is a little TLC. That was certainly the case with this charming two-story home. Lack of care over the years had left the overgrown front yard and exterior looking tired and worn. By fixing the siding, tearing out overgrown shrubs, and giving it a fresh coat of paint, the homeowners gave the entryway a fresh face. Bright white trim contrasts with the pretty forest green base color.

Pre-renovation, an oversize gambrel roofline on the garage disrupted the sight line, creating awkward views in the connection between house and garage. As is the case with many remodeling projects, an interior renovation necessitated the exterior redo. In this case, the need for a master suite pushed the homeowners to look above the garage. That design choice allowed them to shorten the sloping roof over the garage to match the roofline above the front entry; the result is a streamlined exterior. In addition, a short awning over the front entry mimics the same architectural element over the garage door.

Overgrown and ill-placed shrubs formerly distracted from the home's exterior, and dated accents gave it a tired, unkempt look. The first steps in this home's exterior renovation were removing old wood siding and redoing the exterior material palette, including the roof. A pretty pattern of stone on the lower half coordinates with a new front landscaping bed as well as revamped fireplace chimneys. Stucco provides a light-color balance to the charcoal gray trim and roof. A line of newly planted trees also helps to divide public from private areas in the front yard.

Before, an overbearing, uninteresting facade, too-small windows, and lack of details prevented this home from reaching the full potential of its exterior entryway. Originally, the front door was tucked out of sight and the shrub line created a physical separation between home and walkway. The homeowners relocated the entryway, giving it presence and style with an arched window and columns. Windows were enlarged, too, to give them a sense of proportion with the expansive home's size. In place of an unbroken walkway, pavers and curved borders create a sense of movement to the front door.

Dark brown and slightly foreboding, the old barnlike siding material and color felt out of step with the coastal location of this expansive home. New shake shingling helped to solve that, as did perfect placement of white accents, including posts on the wide front porch. In addition, a major structural upgrade on the second floor brought the bump-outs in line with each other, and added windows gave the exterior a gracious feeling of near-symmetry.