Our industry friend, Tom Gillman, recently wrote an excellent article for Innovative Building Materials that features our C-108SH1 Freezeless Outdoor Shower and our P-118 TrueTemp. Tom is a content writer for the building materials industry and focuses on helping fellow homeowners, contractors, and architects discover materials and methods of construction that save money, improve energy efficiency, and increase property value.
Designing a home’s exterior takes a lot of planning. There are endless options when it comes to the customization of a home. However, it is important to consider more than just style, especially for the exterior.
The exterior of your home is exposed to the elements and serves to protect your family in the interior. Throughout the process, you should be considering usability, convenience, longevity, and durability with everything that you choose.
Since there are so many things to go over in the design phase, take a look at these few things you might not have considered, but are still important in the exterior design of your home.
Take an Extra Look at Home Siding
When designing the exterior of a home, the siding often goes overlooked. When choosing the siding of your home, you’ll want to keep durability, longevity, and maintenance in mind as well as aesthetics such as color.
Metal lap siding is a great option becausehome it lasts up to 50 years, comes in multiple colors and finishes, and doesn’t take much to maintain. Other options include brick, stone, stucco, and vinyl siding. Each has its own benefits and disadvantages, but regardless of which you go with, keep in mind other factors than just looks.
Consider Alternative Roofing
Oftentimes when people are designing their home’s exterior, they automatically go with asphalt roofing because it is most common. However, there are alternatives to traditional asphalt roofing that can be more pleasing to the eye and have better longevity and less maintenance
Synthetic slate roof tiles are one of those options. Synthetic slate roof tiles last up to 50 years while asphalt roofs only last 20 years with multiple repairs needed along the way. Another option is metal roofing which is becoming more popular as well. Metal roofs also last 40-70 years and offer a sleek look.
Divert Extra Water
Many people put in pools and spend a lot of time designing them; however, in those designs, homeowners should consider a pool deck drainage system. Pool decks take on a lot of water from the elements and from people getting in and out of the pool itself.
Freezeless outdoor shower by poolside
Sitting water isn’t good for keeping the pool deck clean and it attracts bugs. Additionally, if your pool deck is up against the foundation of your house or siding, sitting water can wear on them. A pool deck drainage system diverts the water away from your house preventing any issues that come with sitting water.
A pool deck drainage system is also great if you want to install an outdoor shower to use before and after getting out of the pool. Recently, freezeless outdoor showers with temperature control have come to market which just gives you one more reason to add one near your pool. The pool deck drainage system will take care of the extra water making it an easy decision.
Don’t Forget Outdoor Faucets
Outdoor faucets are something that a homeowner might not consider when designing a home’s exterior. However, you’ll likely need a hose outside at some point whether it is to wash the car or to water your garden. The main problem with outdoor faucets, especially in places above the frost line, is freezing. Luckily, they have frostproof outdoor faucets that have an elongated stem behind the handle.
Though there are some basic faucets on the market, we like the TrueTemp PRIER P-118. This outdoor faucet has temperature and water flow control which makes it highly versatile. With the temperature adjustment, you no longer have to have super cold water outside in the wintertime Additionally, the water flow control allows you to save water because if you only need a small stream, you don’t have to waste extra water. Of course, the PRIER P-118 is also frostproof so you don’t have to worry about it freezing. Consider putting an upgraded outdoor faucet or two on the exterior of your home. You’ll thank us later.
Contemplate Outdoor Space
The home exterior is more than just the house itself and the details such as roofing and siding. The exterior of your home really encompasses your whole property including any outdoor space that you want.
When designing a home’s exterior, take into consideration what outdoor spaces you want and whether they are going to be connected to the house. This way, you can put a roof over the spaces easily and set up entry points the way you want them. When you go back and add them later it can lead to a weird layout and a bigger project to have to connect them to the house if desired.
The most popular outdoor spaces are porches, patios, and decks. Decks are best if your house is raised off of the ground, otherwise, a patio would be better. Porches are typically raised above the ground as well and are usually in the front of a home rather than the backyard.
Don’t forget that you can really change the look of your porch to match the exterior of your home by choosing porch posts with details. Detailed porch posts add character and visual interest!
Get designing.
There you have it! We hope that you now have some new things to consider when designing your home’s exterior that you might not have thought of. Happy designing!
Todd Gillman is the content director for the Innovative Building Materials blog and a content writer for the building materials industry. He is focused on helping fellow homeowners, contractors, and architects discover materials and methods of construction that save money, improve energy efficiency, and increase property value.
