Taking a hypothetical $3,000, we’ve looked at smart ways to enhance and upgrade your yard—both front and back. We also posed the question to several experts in the field of landscape and garden design: In what ways would you spend $3,000 for outdoor home improvements?
Spend about $400 to $1,000 for a yard maintenance crew to prune, weed, and clean up your front yard for curb appeal or the backyard for livability. Get trees and shrubs trimmed by a professional tree-trimming service. Consult a landscape or garden designer to work with existing shrubs, perennials, ornamentals, and succulents and create a basic design. Then buy plants and hire a landscape crew (often through the designer) to plant them. If you live in a drought-prone area, get rid of your water-guzzling lawn. Hire a landscape crew that specializes in lawn removal. Some areas even offer incentives and rebates for replacing lawns; check with your city or county for more information. Change the landscaping near your pool: it will improve the poolside garden and the look of the pool itself. Buy what you love and know. Barry Glick, garden author and owner of Sunshine Farm and Gardens in Renick, West Virginia, says he would use $3,000 on “lots of wildflowers!”
For instance, the cost of painting a 180-square-foot porch in Phoenix, Arizona, is $272 (low end) to $555 (high end), according to HomeWyse.com, an online home service and materials estimator. Even painting the front doors a bright color can add appeal to a nicely painted exterior. Door hardware that complements the home’s architectural style is also a smart touch. Not surprisingly, Kevin McSherry, of From The Ground Up says he “loves the outdoors” and that he would spend $3,000 on a cabana or a grilling/smoking area. If he had a choice of outdoor cooking equipment, McSherry says he would go for a wood-fired pizza oven. With an extra $3,000, “I would redo my driveway using permeable pavers,” says Helen Yoest, author of Gardening With Confidence and Plants With Benefits. She continues: “My garden is water-wise. All the rain that lands on my property, stays on my property, except for the driveway. I’d like to make that right. Other projects I’ve done with that kind of money that I’ve never regretted are night lighting and adding an important stone step feature in the middle of my mixed border leading into the backyard.” When choosing lighting fixtures, consider energy-saving LEDs, the style of the lighting fixture, exterior materials, and the architectural style of your home. Helen Yoest says she would change her front porch. “It would be purely cosmetic. The roof over the porch would change, as would the stoop. It’s a faux Georgian style with a flat porch roof that extends from the second floor, with tall, ostentatious columns out front. I would change it to a porch roof that extends the front of the house, between the first and second floor.” Other easy updates include repairing steps, replacing columns or posts, repairing, replacing, or painting the porch floor, or sprucing up the door and window frames, the door itself, or other architectural details. You can also buy new furniture or add an outdoor fan to maximize its potential enjoyment level.
