Exterior Home Design in Hershey, PA: The Actual After
By: Sarah
This is the final installment of our three-part series looking at the exterior design of Marybeth Lavery’s home in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Our first post was about Marybeth’s home before she worked with brick&batten. In the second post, we went in-depth on our process to come up with the rendering of her updated home design. Today, we’re going to share what Marybeth did in order to get the gorgeous actual after photo of her home pictured above.
Like Marybeth, you too could come home every day to a view that you adore! The first step: Envisioning it. Our virtual exterior design services will help you get started.
Reminder: Above is the before&after (from last week’s post) that Marybeth was working from.
Renovation timeline
Marybeth received her design from brick&batten at the end of October 2020. She worked with a builder to begin her renovation in mid-March 2021. The project took around 3 months, start-to-finish. “It would have been faster,” says Marybeth, “but weather and difficulty getting some supplies slowed us down a bit.”
Implementing the home design
We asked Marybeth what role her brick&batten home design rendering played in the process of working with a builder. Her response: “That’s an easy one. Whenever the builder had a question, I would just say, ‘I don’t know, let’s look at the picture from brick&batten.'”
Marybeth continues:
The builder had to do some minor adjustments to account for our gutters and spouting. He also built a different railing than in the photo because our township has a regulation about the size of the space between wood slats. Having said that, we used the original photo to inspire us to find something different from the usual vertical rail look. We LOVE it!
Other than that, we used all the paint suggestions, window box look, lighting look (Bevolo), front porch planters etc, as suggested by brick&batten.
Marybeth wanted to make sure to give a shout out to Roy on the Bevolo team, saying “He was the best!” (We love our vendors and their customer service and sales teams! We only recommend products that we know, love, and trust.)
How it feels
As we mentioned in our first post about Marybeth’s goals for the project, she and her husband wanted to update their home in a way that honored its inherent character. “We are even keeping the original coal chute that leads to the basement,” Marybeth says. “It is hidden by a bush, but it’s a fun thing to show our guests.”
It was important for us to update our home, but still have it fit in with the other homes on the block. That is exactly what brick&batten gave us. I must say, I feel like it is the gem of the block, but it is not out of place either. We couldn’t be more pleased. The design and the outcome exceeded expectations by far. We are so thrilled. We get numerous compliments daily from neighbors and town residents.
Not long after the dust settled on her exterior home renovation project, Marybeth was ready for another project. What came after the exterior home design after for Marybeth? A puppy!
It ends up that this is a huge dog owner neighborhood, and everyone is always out walking their dogs. So we got a new puppy to coordinate with our new adorable home! Both are great ways to meet people and have uplifting conversation!
This is why we love our work
Marybeth’s story — and the fact that she was so gracious to share it with us (and you!) — is the biggest reason why we love what we do. Our designers lose sleep when a client isn’t 100% happy with their design, and they work tirelessly to rectify it. (It happens, and that’s why we have revisions built into our process — see our FAQ for more information.) But hearing from clients like Marybeth makes our day, week, even month. It’s why we’re excited to sit down in front of the computer each day and help homeowners and business owners envision the changes they can make that will help them better enjoy their biggest investment.
We get it. Exterior home renovations aren’t quick and easy. But they can be fun and completely worth the effort, both from an ROI standpoint and from an enjoying-life perspective. So what are you waiting for? Get started on your exterior home design today.
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