4 Fresh Ways to Boost Your Home’s Curb Appeal

Level up your home and landscape with inventive features crafted by local pros.

By Sarah Stebbins
From the Spring 2023 issue of Maine Homes by Down East
royal blue aluminum gates with sinuous leaf motifs in an opening of a stone wall
Photo courtesy of DSO Creative Fabrication

1. For Cape Elizabeth gardeners with a playful style, Nate Deyesso, of Saco’s DSO Creative Fabrication, popped aluminum gates with sinuous leaf motifs into stone walls. Rendered in royal blue, like the seaside backdrop, the metalwork “showcases their personalities,” he says.

a broken glass inspired the walnut-veneer door by Biddeford woodworker Gabriel Keith Sutton
Photo courtesy of Gabriel Keith Sutton

2. The scrambled geometry of broken glass inspired the walnut-veneer door Biddeford woodworker Gabriel Keith Sutton crafted for a couple looking to add a wow factor to their mid-century New Hampshire home. Six coats of natural oil finish protect the wood, which will mellow to a maple shade over time, Sutton says.

a pot made from layers of concrete, bronze metallic paint, and paste wax to match faux-bois patio chairs
Photo courtesy of Lunaform

3. “We aim to create something like an amphora that has been lost on the Mediterranean floor for hundreds of years,” says Dan Farrenkopf, cofounder of Sullivan’s Lunaform. “It’s an old look,” comprising, in the case of a pot made to match faux-bois patio chairs in Hancock, layers of concrete, bronze metallic paint, and paste wax.

curving powder-coated-steel railings with “lamb’s tongue” flourishes on a set of granite steps
Photo courtesy of Bradbury Mountain Metalworks

4. To complement a terraced New Hampshire plot (courtesy of Denmark’s C.M. Nichols Landscape Co.), Nicholas Cote, of Pownal’s Bradbury Mountain Metalworks, sunk a series of curving powder-coated-steel railings with “lamb’s tongue” flourishes into granite steps.

Down East magazine, February 2025

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