Opinions needed please on a facelift for my VeryUglyHouse

[veryuglyhouse]

See pic on profile. I want to paint the whole front in one colour, either cream or pale/medium grey.

3 issues:

1. The orange concrete tiles on the left hand side; I've always assumed that we'd have to have them removed and replaced with brick then rendered over but I've seen another house which has had its tiles painted with masonry paint and it looks good. So I'm wondering whether anyone has any experience of painting this type of surface and how it looked.

1. I know the windows particularly on the left hand side are horrible but don't really have the £6k it would cost to replace just those four, so do you reckon it would look ok if I just had the frames painted?

1. What colours should I go for? I'm thinking either cream for the whole front exept the side by the door where there's a mature climber which I dont want to have to kill, with either slate grey window frames, porch upright and front door,

or

pale/medium grey (sort of bluey-grey) front with white windowframes and a delphinium blue door.

All ideas welcome :-)

Doh. I meant left hand side as you look at the house.

Your profile doesn't seem to be public

Can't access your profile pic either.....

Or me...

shite. I can't seem to work out how to make it public. It asks if I want MNers to see my pics and I clicked yes. will have another gol.

Fixed!

Sorry.

I've seen far uglier houses!

Really, Soupy I always reverse into the drive so I don't have to look at it

It's not ugly,just dark. Id go for pale grey,white frames,and a navy-blue door.

I don't think it's ugly either. I'm a big fan of grey so I think I'd go for pale grey with dark grey window frames.

It's very dark and slightly dated but tbh it reminds me a lot of several architectural modern builds around here except they go for lighter building materials.

I think if it was in more open ground and the garden was modern and clean it would look completely different.

Thank you! tbh it's worse in real life, the combination of the orange concrete tiles and blank windows on the right is really horrible. But I think part of the prob is that we're in a v pretty village and the neighbouring properties are all either cutesy cottages or q grand Queen Ann type houses so ours looks like a bit of a carbuncle.

I'm leaning to wards grey now, particularly because the tiles would prob look better grey than cream.

Cabbage, I agree about the garden. We're having a new drive put in once the front is painted and I'll try to persuade dh to do something about the garden which is planted with a lot of grasses etc which look lovely in summer but crap in winter.

I thought that the drive/garden is doing it no favours too.

It's difficult to tell really as the picture is so small.

But yes, I have seen irredeemably ugly houses in my time :) Yours just looks tired and in need of a bit of brightening.

I'd do something about the black cladding and the windows seem the wrong size - I'd save up and have larger windows put in (it shouldn't cost anything like 6k). I wouldn't recommend painting over concrete tiles - it rarely looks good.

HAve a look here for idea
www.backtofrontexteriordesign.com/
I would paint the window frames for now but think about having larger windows put in.
You could clad over the concrete tiles - its hard to see what you mean as the pic is quite small.
Pale or medium grey would look good for masonry, I have used dark grey before which looks good too but this was on a victorian house.

Agree that a simpler front garden would help, or you could soften it with a wilder look, with looser planting.
Can you put a bigger pic up so we can have a closer look?

Thbis one might inspire you
www.backtofrontexteriordesign.com/gallery_detail5.html

I'd do the drive / garden before painting the house. The drive / garden is going to be dirty work, better to do that before the painting of the house IMO. I had my old house painted in a cream colour, more of a stone cream rather than a yellow cream, it looked lovely but it needed doing every three years.

I would look for a way to work with the tiles - I don't think painting them would be a good idea. They may look better if the rest of the house were lighter - some kind of stone colour rather than bright white/cream.

It really isnt that ugly

I would get rid of the climbing plant immediately. It darkens the house and will scupper any plans to rejuvenate the house.

I would live with it for a while and save up so that you can replace all The windows (windows are the 'eyes' of the house ). Then I would replace the windows with aluminium or wood. I would also render the whole house.

Personally I would choose dark warm green grey for the windows and chalk, off white or a non-yellowy cream for the render. I would use a render system like monocouche or similar with a really decent gaurentee.

You could completely transform the house.

Are you sure you are not going to do any structural work? If so I wouldn't do the drive until afterwards.

I know it's not quite the same as your but this link shows the type of transformation you could achieve.

I would have an oak door personally

I wouldn't bother painting the tiles. It wouldn't look good long term. I think you need to look at the whole picture rather than each of the seperate things.

How about hiring an architect for 1 hour and getting his or her views.

Thanks everyone.

Panacotta, your link; www.backtofrontexteriordesign.com/gallery_detail5.html.

is actually the one that inspired me to paint the tiles, as that's what they did. I called Back to Front Exteriors and they confirmed that they used masonrypaint.

Hmm, I don't know. I do quite like the idea of cladding but dh is a bit of a stick in the mud.

I'll work on him a bit more. Initially he didn't want to do anything at all.

Good point about getting the drive done before the painting so it doesn't get filthy.

Cheers everyone!

I think I know where that house is, looks very similar to one near my mum.
What part of the country is it?
Also, not ugly, just dark.

South Bucks, Moomoomie