Colorado Curb Appeal Makeover: A 4-Weekend Exterior Plan

A full exterior makeover on a Front Range home takes four weekends, costs $1,500 to $6,000 in materials when the owner does the work, and changes the first photo, the first showing and the first offer. The order is fixed by Colorado weather: wash first, paint and hardware second, yard third, deck and driveway last, with everything done 10 days before the photographer.

This is the multi-weekend plan. The single-afternoon version, one machine and a driveway, is in our pressure washing a Colorado home in one afternoon post. Interior work and the inspection items are on the preparing and adding value before selling page. Every cost below is a Denver metro number and holds from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs.

What does the four-weekend plan cost?

Weekend 1: wash, gutters, windows, screens

Every later job sits on a clean surface, so the first weekend is water. Rent a 3,000 psi gas washer ($60 to $120 a day) and do the driveway, walk, siding, deck and fence on a Saturday above 40 degrees with no freeze in the next 24 hours. Sunday is gutters, windows and screens.

• Gutters: a Colorado cottonwood fills them every June and every October. Clear them and run a hose to check the downspouts discharge 5 feet from the foundation; bentonite clay that gets wet at the footing heaves the slab and cracks the drywall, and the buyer's inspector knows it.
• Windows: inside and out. Fogged double-pane units ($300 to $900 each to replace) show in afternoon sun.
• Screens: hail from May to September tears them. Re-screen at $25 to $75 each or pull every screen off for the photos and store them in the garage, labeled.
• Junk: the dead grill, the tires, the fence pickets and the broken planters go to the dump or a $150 to $600 junk-removal load.

Weekend 2: front door, paint touch-up and hardware

The front door is the one place a bold color pays. On a Front Range home with tan, gray or greige siding, a deep navy, black, forest green or brick red door photographs from the street. Two coats of exterior enamel cost $60 to $90 and take a Saturday, door off the hinges and laid flat. In Highlands Ranch, Central Park, Stapleton-era Aurora and every metro-district neighborhood with a design review committee, the color needs approval first, and approvals take weeks. Our Denver HOA rules and fees guide covers what the committee looks for.

UV at 5,280 feet fades paint on the south and west sides in 5 to 7 years. Touch up peeling trim, fascia and the garage door frame with primer and 100 percent acrylic paint on Sunday; a full repaint of two elevations runs $2,000 to $4,000 by a crew.

• House numbers: 5-inch numbers in black or brushed nickel, $30 to $100, mounted where a buyer's agent sees them from the car.
• Door handle and deadbolt: one finish that matches the numbers and the light, $80 to $250. Skip polished brass; it pits in a Colorado winter.
• Porch and garage lights: $40 to $150 each, LED, 2700K, on a dusk-to-dawn sensor. Winter showings in the Denver metro run to 4:30 pm and the buyer drives by again after dark.
• Mailbox: repaint or replace, $30 to $120. A rusted post reads as a neglected house.

Weekend 3: the yard under Denver Water rules

Front Range buyers ask what the yard costs to water. Denver Water's summer rules run May 1 to October 1: no more than three watering days a week, nothing between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., and leaking sprinklers repaired within 10 days. A front yard that looks good under those rules is a selling point; one that died under them is a price cut.

• Edge and mulch: cut a clean edge on every bed and lay 2 to 3 inches of shredded cedar or pea gravel. $150 to $400 for a typical front yard. This is the highest-return hour of the whole plan.
• Lawn repair: aerate ($80 to $150), overseed with a Kentucky bluegrass and fescue blend, and fix the stuck head that made the brown circle. Six weeks before photos so seed fills in.
• Beds that survive: blue grama and buffalo grass in the parkway strip, Russian sage, yarrow, penstemon, blanket flower and catmint in the beds, on a drip line. A pre-planned water-wise garden kit from a Front Range provider costs $100 to $300; a full conversion of a 600 sq ft front strip runs $5,000 to $12,000 and only pays when the lawn is past saving. Plant lists are in the Front Range xeriscaping guide.
• Pots at the door: two matching planters with geraniums or a dwarf spruce, $80 to $200, and the entry photographs finished.

For privacy along a side lot line, the trees that hold up on the Front Range without a sprinkler after year two are Austrian pine, upright juniper and Colorado blue spruce, the state tree. A 6-foot container tree installed runs $300 to $700. Planting in the strip between the sidewalk and the street in Denver requires a permit from Denver Forestry, and the city picks from an approved species list; on the lot itself no permit is needed. A tree planted the month before listing does not raise the price; a hedge that is 8 feet tall does.

Weekend 4: deck, fence, driveway and garage door

Unstained cedar and redwood turn gray in one Colorado summer. Stain the deck and the fence that faces the street when daytime temperatures hold between 50 and 85 degrees, 48 hours after the wash: $150 to $400 in semi-transparent stain for a 300 sq ft deck and 100 feet of fence, $800 to $2,500 hired. Replace boards that flex, tighten railing posts, and add lag screws to a ledger that is only nailed; those three items are on every Colorado inspection report.

Freeze-thaw nights from October to April and bentonite clay that swells when wet crack every Front Range driveway. Fill cracks wider than a quarter inch with polyurethane sealant ($20 a tube). A slab that has lifted more than three-quarters of an inch is a trip edge the inspector photographs; foam lifting brings it level for $800 to $2,500, and a new 600 sq ft two-car driveway runs $6,000 to $12,000. Scrub magnesium chloride bloom off the garage apron and slab with a concrete cleaner.

A hail-dented garage door is the largest single surface on the front of most Front Range homes. Under 10 dents, leave it and note the storm date in the disclosures; a door that is dented across every panel gets replaced at $1,200 to $2,500 for a 16-foot insulated steel door, and the insurer covers it when the claim is inside the policy deadline. Rust at the bottom panel is covered in our Colorado garage door rust repair guide.

What exterior lighting matters for winter showings?

From November to February the sun sets before 5 pm along the Front Range, and buyers who work drive by after dark. Three fixtures cover it: a porch light on a dusk-to-dawn sensor, a garage light on the same sensor, and two to four path lights on a $60 to $150 low-voltage kit along the front walk. Use 2700K warm-white LEDs on all three; 5000K reads as a parking lot. The Colorado landscape lighting and property value post covers the larger installs.

How far ahead of the photos should the exterior be done?

Ten days. Spring listings in the Denver metro go live in March and April, when the lawn is still brown, so the plan for a spring listing runs the wash, paint, deck and driveway weekends in September and October and the yard weekend in early March with mulch, pots and edging doing the work grass cannot. A summer listing runs all four weekends in May and June, before hail season peaks in July, and touches up after any storm. Our best times to sell a house in Colorado post has the month-by-month calendar.

Do the exterior before the Smart Pricing Report is finished; the price is set on the house the buyer sees from the street.

Where to go next

• How to sell a house in Colorado, step by step
• The Colorado Home Seller's Guide
• Marketing your Colorado home to sell
• 8 curb appeal fixes for Front Range sellers
• Explore Castle Rock homes for sale
• Meet the Kenna Real Estate Group agents

Talk to the Kenna Real Estate Group

The Kenna Real Estate Group walks the outside of every Front Range listing with the seller, marks which of the four weekends the home needs and which it can skip, and schedules the photographer for the day the last job dries. Call or text 303-955-4220. A live person answers. Not a robot, not a phone tree. To see the exteriors yours will be compared against, search every home for sale in Colorado.