Home exterior designs are a crucial part of your home’s curb appeal. They’re the first thing anyone sees about your home, and they play a big role in how your home is perceived. So why settle for a standard, plain, or boring home exterior design, knowing how important it is to your house as a whole?
Exterior Home Designs
These 42 designs will show you just what’s possible when you start thinking outside the box.
1. Cottage Style
Just because a house is small on size doesn’t mean that it can’t be big on style, too. The light colors and bold trim of this cottage house makes it appear to be larger than it really is, while the sunroom addition gets a bold treatment in matching soffits and window trim.
2. A Regal Painted Lady
Once upon a time, nearly all homes were painted to show off their architectural features to their best effect. If you have an older or Victorian style home, why not show it off and bring that “Painted Lady” back to life.
3. Wrap Around Style
While the porch may offer some continuity around the front of this home, it’s the contrast in siding on the upper story side of the house that really brings it to life. The vertical paneling around the windows alongside the chimney helps draw the eye up above the porch, adding dimension at the same time.
4. Naturally Beautiful Style
When you’ve created unique home to meet your particular needs, don’t cover it in an everyday siding. Instead, use an irregular shingle to contrast the lines and size of the home and give it a lot of dimension and added interest at the same time.
5. The Sum of the Parts
Older homes that are made up of many different, smaller buildings put together have unique style needs. In this case, the problem is easily solved by using a combination of shingles and board-and-batten style siding. The siding is matched by shingled and metal standing seam roofs, which helps to further emphasize the different shapes.
6. Multi-Level View
When you have views this amazing, you need to make sure you match them. This multi-level home is built into the side of the hill, and needs to look as though it belongs there. The mixtures of cedar-look planks and architectural panels emphasize its clean lines, drawing attention to its height.
7. Mix and Match Facades
Who says that your home exterior design needs to feature just one type of material, let alone one type of siding? This home makes great use of brick, fiber cement lap siding and fiber cement shingles to create a look that has depth, interest, and a style all its own.
8. Chateau Style
If you have a home in a rural or vacation setting, make sure it matches its surroundings like this chateau-style home. The cedar-look planks and shingles in a rich brown stain keep this façade simple, letting the detailed woodwork come shining through.
9. Top and Bottom Style
Differentiate the different levels of your home by switching up your siding. This home exterior design features horizontal lap siding on the lower half of the house, while the above section features board-and-batten siding for a pleasing contrast in texture.
10. A Place to Get Away from It All
Your home is your refuge and should reflect that, right down to the exterior design. This home’s screened porch is designed to catch the sea breeze, while the board and batten style siding on the outbuilding calls to mind a simpler time of life where you can go to get away from it all.
11. A Naturally Beautiful Look
Sometimes the most effective way of bringing out your home’s best is to help blend it in with its surroundings. In this case, the natural fieldstone nearby is complemented by the Flagstone gray textured shingles on the home. The effect is organic, natural, and makes the home appear to belong right where it is.
12. Hips, Gables, and Towers, Oh My
Breaking up the roofline of a home can really help add interest and style. To further emphasize the differences in the exterior, a variety of siding styles are also used including panels, trim, and shingles to get a look that’s traditional, yet unique at the same time.
13. Shingled Out for Perfection
A lot of people feel that shingles are best used on cottages and rustic looking homes. This isn’t necessarily the case, however; this home makes great use of shingles to add texture to the space. Panels and fieldstone help complete the look, giving the house as much dimension as it does rooflines.
14. Classic Good Looks
There’s something about a white picket fence that makes a property feel wholesome and complete. This home uses Snow white siding and trim to match that fence, right up to the ceiling of its two porches for a polished, cohesive design.
15. Curves for Days
When you want more detail than a simple horizontal lap siding, but standard shingles just aren’t getting the job done, look no further than half-rounds. These curvy shingles dress up the home’s exterior while providing matching detail on either side.
16. A Contrast in Vision
When you want to call attention to an area, it helps to make it stand out from its surroundings. This home exterior design uses not only a contrasting texture, but a contrasting color as well to make it stand out from the homes on either side.
17. A Warmer Modern Façade
People are used to thinking of contemporary designs are cold, sterile, and impersonal. Wood-look panels with a realistic-looking wood grain completely changes this perception, while still helping to maintain a contemporary appearance for this home.
18. Town Houses with Personality
Just because your town house is linked to others on either side, doesn’t mean that it can’t have its own personality and its own look. These three homes have vastly different appearances despite being built together. Horizontal lap siding, board-and-batten, and irregular shingles all in different colors help to set these homes apart.
19. Different Uses, Different Styles
Today’s buildings often house a wide range of different people, businesses, and purposes inside. So why keep the exterior the same all over? Instead, change up the exterior to match the many different ways the building can be used. Mix and match color and style to create an apartment building as unique as its inhabitants.
20. A Style All Its Own
This contemporary home uses a lot of glass to open up the foyer and bring in the light. To balance this, a section of the exterior is done in a vertical cedar-look siding that helps warm up the façade. Meanwhile, the architectural panels and horizontal lap siding help keep the windows as the focal point of the design.
21. Moving in All Directions
Who says that walls have to flat to be effective? Why not add some additional dimension to your building with some areas that emerge from the sides to challenge your views. This bold lemon/lime color further calls attention to the building’s protrusions adding to the effect.
22. Contemporary Elegance
Many people associate a contemporary home with a cold, sterile feel. This is hardly the case for this home, however, where rich, cedar-look lap siding in contrasting colors warms up the façade. The home is modern, yet warm and inviting at the same time.
23. Irregular Beauty
Every good design needs one “off” note to make the rest of the space come to life. In this case, it’s the irregular shingles used on the upper portion of the design. They contrast the more formal appearance of the rest of the home, giving it character and major curb appeal.
24. Naturally Appealing
Homes need to match their surroundings to some degree in order to maximize their curb appeal. And in rustic settings, you need a home exterior design that can coordinate with the natural beauty around you. This cedar-look home pairs perfectly with peeled wood logs and river stones to create the perfect rustic lodge.
25. It’s In the Details
Opting for a neutral façade doesn’t have to mean creating something boring. This home features a lot of detail with a two-tone palette of neutral colors. Half-round and irregular shingles along with decorative trim add a lot of interest to the lap siding used elsewhere on the home.
26. Bold Color, Bold Texture
Who says that your home’s exterior needs to be boring? With vivid, textured, architectural panels that never fade, you can create an eye-catching façade for your home or building. The changing texture and color of this building’s exterior keep it fresh from top to bottom and ensure that it’s never too much of one thing.
27. Bungalow Charm
You don’t need to have a large or a fancy home to enjoy a beautiful exterior design. Bungalows, cottages, and other smaller homes like this one can still look great with the right trim, and a little attention to detail, such as the board-and-batten siding on the bump out.
28. Rambling Ranch
For smaller homes that don’t have a lot of detail or changes in plane or direction, sometimes just using a more interesting siding is enough. These irregular shingles in a deep green against the bright white trim add texture and depth this single story home.
29. Mixed Materials Make a Marvelous View
Too many homes are covered in a single type of siding or cladding, which makes too many homes that look too much alike. This home breaks the mold with a variety of different looks and textures working together as one. The use of fiber cement panels, lap siding, and fieldstone add a lot of depth to this modern home.
30. It Is Easy Being Green
Don’t be afraid of a deep, rich color for your home’s exterior. This saturated Forest Green is paired with bright white trim and black shutters to show it off to perfection. The change in paneling beneath the windows helps break up the siding, adding even more dimension to the design.
31. Eye-Catching Detail
The use of cream colored trim on this Cypress-colored home creates a softer appeal that goes well with its surroundings. To balance out the fieldstone along the bottom of the exterior, detailed trim is used just beneath the gables, creating an exterior home design that’s simple, yet full of character and detail all at once.
32. Interconnected Panels Are Like Child’s Play
There’s nothing more spectacular than a well-done ship lap installation. This home exterior design features a deep red-brown wood-look siding installed in a ship lap above architectural paneling for contrast. The ship lap continues right up under the soffit, creating a unique, three-dimensional look for the home.
33. Life on the Farm
There’s something appealing to many people about the appearance of barns and farmhouses. The image invoked is one of a simpler way of life that can seem charming to many outside observers. Give your home some of the same appeal though some of the details, such as board-and-batten siding on sections of the home, as well as color that is reminiscent of a true barn red.
34. A Simpler Look
Larger homes don’t have to be ostentatious or overly done to make a statement. Sometimes a simpler design is what’s needed in certain situations. This Autumn Red home keeps things simple with a horizontal lap siding, letting the focus be on the large, wrap around front porch. Vertical porch skirting adds a little contrast to the rest of the façade, adding just the right amount of interest to the design.
35. Ship Lapped Perfection
There’s nothing more spectacular than a well-done ship lap installation. This home exterior design features a deep red-brown wood-look siding installed in a ship lap above architectural paneling for contrast. The ship lap continues right up under the soffit, creating a unique, three-dimensional look for the home.
36. It’s In the Details
A simple home exterior design gets elevated to something else entirely just by the addition of some decorative shingles just below the roof line. A few rows of half-round or octagon shingles can add a dash of personality to a home that helps make it look loved, cared for, and filled with charm.
37. A Panel of Blues
You don’t have to choose between siding styles if more than one type is calling to you. This home makes great use of three separate siding types, all in the same gorgeous shade of light blue. Horizontal lap siding covers the majority of the building, while architectural panels frame out the windows, and a wide board-and-batten helps separate the different planes of the façade, adding an additional level of detail.
38. Color That Demands Your Attention
Studies have shown again and again that the color red is associated with power, hunger, and passion. So what better hue to paint your building’s exterior? While most reds eventually fade on wood siding, fiber cement panels stay true, letting your building turn heads for years to come.
39. Subtle Shading
Adding color or mixing and matching your siding doesn’t have to be bright, loud, or very obvious. Some of the best home exterior designs make use of more subtle lines and colors instead. This charming home uses a pale blue lap siding on the bottom half of the home that is wider than the gray siding on the top half. The effect is subtle, but grounding at the same time.
40. Old Fashioned Charm
While horizontal lap siding seems to be the default look these days, there’s a lot of charm and interest in breaking the mold and moving toward a more old fashioned look like this board and batten siding. The evenly spaced boards give height this this home, drawing the eye upward and putting the focus on the center.
41. It’s In the Angles
Many homes have a traditional layout that features the garage in line with the front door or located around the side. This home has the garage off at a 90 degree angle from the front door, with the peek on the garage matched by the arch just above the entryway. To keep the lines of the house moving, horizontal lap siding wraps the entire façade in a single color, letting the angles be the focus.
42. A Stone Faced Façade
Mixing and matching materials is always a fantastic way to add depth, texture, and dimension to any home exterior design. This home features fieldstone that wraps around the bottom of the home, then covers the side while extending up the chimney. Horizontal lap siding with color matched trim adds the perfect amount of contrast both in color and in texture to set this home off beautifully.
The exterior of your home sets the stage for how it’s perceived and the initial impression that people will make of it. Take these designs into consideration as you plan your home’s exterior to find the perfect look for your house.
