Before and After of Our Dutch Colonial Exterior Refresh

I feel like we have been lovingly working on the exterior of tour dutch colonial home since the day we moved into this house and somehow this is the first I have written of it. We live in a dutch colonial with a mansard roof and from the moment we moved into it, we knew we wanted to give the exterior a bit of an overhaul. While I actually really loved the landscaping that was here previously with it’s cottage style that fit perfectly with our home, it was just unsafe since the high trees and bushes offered places for snakes to hide, blocked light into the downstairs spaces and were generally hard to maintain.

So we started by taking the bushes down to the street with the expectation that we would add greenery back. The top picture is from years ago but gives a good idea for the yard’s layout. While the other is from when we saw the house in 2020. (You can see more before pictures here.)

What Do You Want Your Home to Feel Like

We led with what we wanted our home to feel like. We wanted our home to feel like a home of its style. But we also wanted it to feel welcoming and warm. When you drive up -no matter the season- we wanted it to welcome you to take your shoes off, sit down and stay a while. And while that’s asking a lot of the exterior, it’s where those feelings start.

Inspiration for Colonial Exteriors

1. Patrick Ahearn // 2. Jenny Steffens // 3. The Front Door Project // 4. Abby Capalbo

These home were our starting point. They don’t all align perfectly with our house style or aesthetic but they had the feeling we were going for (and not just because of the photos editing).

Dutch Colonial Exterior Refresh and Styling

Model Home Source

This model home was perfect for the direction we wanted this house to go.

Our Home Exterior Afters

What We Updated and Styled

Paint: We wanted to styling of our house to feel appropriate both for our house and our neighborhood. We leaned into that sort of Martha’s Vineyard meets Williamsburg style by following our gut and changing the color of the house from its original gray to Sherwin William’s “Alabaster“, the perfect soft creamy white. The previous owners painted the house gray right before it was placed on the market but it was too cool for facade. We updated the shutter with Sherwin Williams’ Emerald paint and colored matched to Essex Green and painted the trim Pure white.

We let our Instagram community pick between two house color palettes and this is what they chose. (Our other option was a red rust barn color seen in the inspiration photos above). We love the white they chose It feels classic and looks lovely in every season (cc:ing the movie Father of the Bride). The white color offers a nice contrast to the dark gray of the mansard roof which covers half of our front facade and the green of the shutters picks up the tones in it as well.

Door: We loved the door that was here previously. So we updated swapped out the dated screen for this 6 lite Storm door This door is common in our area and we were able to buy it locally from Total Wood Store and pick it up same day. Antique brass accents were the name of the day with this Nostalgic warehouse door knob, classic house numbers and our trusty bumblebee door knocker.

Landscaping: We had the absolute pleasure of partnering with the company, Yardzen, during our time working with Country Living. They were In. Cred. Ible. for guidance. We had no idea how to go about planning the yard but we sent them photos and videos of our home and filled out a questionaire about our style and they sent us back essentially a color by numbers of what would be best for our yard.

Phase one was adding these Endless Summer Hydrangeas that are now on their third summer of Marcus’s undying love and affection so they are off to the races. We are considering interspersing boxwoods to follow our Yardzen diagram. We also added sod last summer. I am on the fence about grass since it’s largely not a good use of space but I am thinking through what would be more meaningful without attracting snakes again.

Brick Path: I loved the previous flagstone path that was here. It felt whimsical and a bit magical between the previous shrubbery but it also felt dangerous. The rocks felt playing leap frog and if it rained, it elevated the sense of danger. Layer in us getting packages every 30 seconds while we renovated and we were worried about the safety of our delivery folks.

We went with a 90 degree herringbone brick pattern. Marcus has this photo saved in his phone from the dawn of Tumblr. Before we were married, had a home or considered renovations, Marcus had this photo as home inspiration. So I couldn’t dare deny him the brick path when the time came.

Styling: We love the look of functional shutters but learned from our last place, that they are not economical. So to have the look without having to sell plasma, we purchased these faux shutter dogs. We added these copper Hyland lights. They were originally for our garage but they just looked so beautiful in the front. We topped the look off with a classic flag, these boxwoods in black planters and a cheeky welcome mat.

What’s Next?

The exterior of our home is constantly evolving. Over the next few years, we’ve got plans to add more greenery. Towards the right side of our home, we just began growing a trellis of New Dawn climbing roses. We are going to give them some time to fully establish and then begin growing other items around them. I also have a strong desire for upstairs window boxes so I imagine that’s on the horizon as well. All and all, I am so happy with the direction this home is moving in and excited to update you all as changes take place.