Yesterday was picture day at Carla and Andrew’s sweet Logan Square house, as we get ready to go on the market there soon. {if you want to see more about how they transformed the interior, click here} While they did a lot of work on the interior of their house, one of the simplest, but biggest impact, projects they did was replacing the siding on the exterior.

The house looked okay with it’s original grey siding, but didn’t really stand out. And when you got closer than just looking at a photograph, you could tell that it had ‘been around the block’ if you will, and had seen better days… it just looked aged and a bit tired.

While they could have sold this house without replacing the siding, but this project was a home-run value add, it makes a huge impact and sets a totally different tone before you even walk through the front door.

Here is their house with the old siding

It’s fine right? But it just doesn’t look ~ great.

And here’s the house with new siding. And they decided to go sans shutters as well, which is a bit of a bold move, but I love it!

I mean. Come. On. It looks so much better! And don’t you think the house looks bigger without the shutters?

Here’s the side by side so that you can really see it.

Curb appeal is sooooo important. You have one chance to get people excited about your space… and if they walk up and see a sad looking building that still needs some love, it colors their entire experience and perception of everything else they see in the space ~ even if you’ve done a ton of work to the interior.

So make sure your house looks its absolute best, and a bigger exterior project might be worth while to add the most value {and feel like a proud parent when you see how much everyone loves your ‘baby’ that you’ve put so much love and work into, lol!}