A home well-maintained is a home well-preserved. I’ve always tried to live by those words with my own home.
All you really need to do is establish a regular maintenance schedule so that your house stays looking as fresh as the day you bought it. Here’s a few suggestions to keep your home from looking its age:
1. Exterior lighting
If your home is more than a year old, it’s time to clean your exterior light fixtures. It doesn’t take long for these to collect dust, dirt, and grime since they are exposed to the elements every day. Wiping them, inside and out, may be all that’s needed to enliven the outside of your home.
However, lights are also among one of the first things that date your home. If you’ve owned your home for a while, you may want to consider updating your fixtures. It could be the nip and tuck your home needs to make it look young again.
2. Clean your siding or stucco
Between the humidity and the summer rains, the exterior of our homes take a beating. By doing an annual power wash of your siding or stucco, your home will get a facial that will keep it glowing.
3. Examine your paint job
Our Florida sun warms our skin, but we realize that to protect our “personal exteriors” we need to wear sunscreen to mitigate damage. Paint is the “sunscreen” that protects your home from sun damage. But eventually it too needs maintenance. For example:
Bubbling or blistering — During a hot summer, have you ever noticed the paint on a door or the side of your home bubbling or blistering? Due to the sun exposure and heat, paint becomes so hot that it can almost boil. Then if that bubble or blister pops, the materials below it becomes exposed to the elements.
Chalking — The sun dehydrates paint over time and causes chemicals to rise to the surface. What happens is you’ll see a fine layer of white powder on top of a painted surface that looks like chalk.
Fading — The sun can cause paint to lighten or discolor. You may not even notice it until you compare an exposed portion of painted surface to a non-exposed portion. Dark colors are particularly vulnerable to fading, but even whites can discolor and yellow over time.
Just as you would go to a dermatologist for an annual skin check, once a year take a look around your home. By keeping up with your maintenance, you will save yourself time and money.
You may find that, after a brief examination, a little touch-up or cleaning or a few tweaks can make your house look as fresh as the day you bought it. However, if you’d like to give the exterior of your home a facelift, give us a call here at PureStyle. We’d love to help you pick out new colors or exterior light fixtures that could be just the thing to keep your home…timeless.