Exterior Home Trends keep changing year by year. Your home’s exterior is the first thing that people see, whether they’re visiting or just driving by. So, no matter how charming or well-maintained your interiors are, your exteriors need to look great to help create that crucial first impression known as curb appeal.
Home exteriors account for more than 20% of your home’s value, so an exterior that looks out of date could be dragging down the worth of your home. Exterior home trends in 2018 are designed to help maximize your home’s looks, both now and down the road, making these projects one of the best investments you can make in your home this year.
Exterior Home Trends for 2018
1. Monochromatic Exterior Colors
For a while, it seemed that people were splashing out on the colors of their homes, getting bolder with their choices. For 2018, though, predictions are showing that people are scaling back to make different color choices that let the architecture and material show off instead.
This includes the use of monochromatic colors. New exterior home trends predict the use of black, white, and many shades of grey across the exteriors of many homes. Bold colors are kept as accents only, reserved for the front door, or small sections of siding to make the rest of the colors pop.
Expect to see siding and trim that are similar in color, with only a few shades differentiating them from one another. This more subtle color palette allows for more versatility later on, allowing you to change out door or shutter colors more easily to create continuously up to date looks.
2. Modern Exterior Designs
Modern architecture and mid-century modern design in particular have been seeing an increasing wave of popularity over the last several years, particularly when it comes to home exterior design. Expect this trend to continue into 2018, with many contemporary architectural styles appearing on new homes and many remodels.
Things like fiber cement architectural panels help to give home exteriors a clean, modern look that’s also easy to maintain. You can also expect to see things like metal trim and accents, mid-century modern columns on transitional house designs, and cleaner, less ornate styles.
While highly-textured exteriors are still a current trend, more homeowners are moving away from fussy designs and high stylized accents. Instead, the focus is on more subtle appearances that let the lines of the house take center stage. These cleaner looks are also easier to maintain, being made of durable materials like fiber cement that don’t require frequent scraping and repainting. This ensures that the exterior continues to look great well into the next decade, fitting in better with many homeowner’s busier lifestyles.
3. Green Materials
Staying eco-friendly is one trend that only continues to grow as the years go by. Homeowners today are more eco-savvy than ever before, choosing to put materials in and around their homes that are sustainable and better for the environment as well as low maintenance and durable.
Fiber cement also meets this bill, not only require less paint to ensure fewer levels of VOCs, but also meeting LEED certification criteria for many projects.
4. Mixed Materials, Mixed Styles
While contemporary looks are certainly an upcoming trend, many homeowners also still enjoy the look of mixed materials and mixed styles on their home exteriors as well. Mixing different materials, such as aluminum and fiber cement or natural stone with wood, offers a richness to the exterior that can be lacking when only one material is used throughout.
In many cases, an accent wall or section that uses a different material than what’s installed on the rest of the house can help to highlight the main material and set it off better. For example, a contemporary-style home done in architectural panels that features an aluminum accent wall the same color as the trim surrounding the panels can make for a very dynamic home exterior.
Different materials can also add more depth to the design, breaking up sections that are two plain, but without adding a lot of ornate detail that people are beginning to shy away from. For example, a skirt of natural stone veneer can help break up a horizontal lap siding and bring some interest to the rest of the design, but without clashing with the style of the architecture or the rest of the home.
Update Your Home for 2018
Home styles for 2018 are versatile and clean, with an emphasis on sustainability, not only for the environment, but for the style and maintenance of the home as well. That’s why materials like fiber cement, and clean lines like those found in architectural panels are beginning to take center stage. Use these styles and materials for your next home exterior update to help capitalize on these growing trends. By focusing on the future for your home’s style, you help to create a better, more lasting design for today.
