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Landscape Design

15 Ways to Create a Welcoming Front Yard

These homes featured on Houzz offer a neighborly view to the street

Annie Thornton May 1, 2016

Houzz Editorial Staff

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A welcoming front yard or entry can help you shed the stresses of daily life, even before you step inside. But it doesn’t have to stop there. Many homeowners and designers have designed front entries that also engage with the neighborhood in a friendly, inviting way. These 15 entries featured in previous Houzz Tours go beyond a welcome mat and door wreath — although some of them have those too.

Living Gardens Landscape Design

1. Social seating with a view. With a view straight out to the ocean and mild weather year-round, it made plenty of sense for homeowner and landscape designer Sacha McCrae to make the front yard her Orange County, California, home’s outdoor social space. “The front is where friends and neighbors gather. The back of the house is a more intimate family space,” she says.

A front patio next to the front door leads to a gravel fire pit area surrounded by a ring of chairs. An ipe wood deck, with another gathering area, is a step up from the fire pit area. With plants forming a loose screen around the perimeter, and a planted trellis of bower vines (Pandorea jasminoides) on the street, the front yard creates a casual place for the family of four to gather and meet with neighbors to watch the sunset.

Read more about this casual front yard in Southern California

Houzz TV: Family Living in 980 Square Feet

2. Front yard raised beds. This 980-square-foot, cast-in-place concrete house in Houston features plenty of attention-grabbing entry features, including a one-of-a-kind sculpture and a patio for homeowners Mark Schatz and Anne Eamon’s two children to play on. But it’s the raised beds that make it a more inviting and entertaining place to be.

Putting raised beds with edibles in the front yard — rather than in the backyard, where they are more commonly seen — can make gardening and harvesting more convenient for homeowners and also can engage the neighborhood in a way ornamental plants don’t.

Read more about this 980-square-foot family home

Kate Hansen Photography

3. A welcome message. Sometimes there’s no better way to say welcome than with the word itself. While the yellow paint of interior designer Melissa Lunardon‘s front door in Melbourne, Australia, is already engaging, the written message boosts the invitation.

Read more about this coastal Australian home

Strand Design

4. Open fencing. Though a new fence creates privacy for the owners of this renovated farmhouse in St. Paul, Minnesota, its open frames on top provide a visibility that makes the yard feel welcoming and not closed off. Additionally, the open porch sitting above the fence line allows the homeowners to sit and take in the neighborhood. “It’s nice to be able to sit on an open porch and have that neighborhood feel,” says architect and homeowner David Strand.

Read more about this renovated Minnesota farmhouse

Andrew Snow Photography

5. A blend of private and public space. The planted driveway, mulch path and low raised beds in front of Sabrina and Wolfram Esser’s home seem to connect the house with the sidewalk rather than separate them. A cedar-wrapped porch gives the homeowners a place to sit and take in their East End Toronto neighborhood, where they live with their toddler daughter.

Read more about this modern home in Toronto

Bonnie McCarthy

6. Front yard dining. This Long Beach, California, ranch home’s front yard brings another traditionally private activity — dining — into the public space. This social activity with friends often takes place outside in Southern California — but typically in the privacy of a backyard or courtyard. Here, homeowners Nick and Holland Brown can host gatherings on the extra-wide front patio, enjoying the front yard and neighborhood.

Read more about this ecofriendly home in Southern California

7. Steps to linger on. A front porch is not necessarily essential to a welcoming entry, as this stoop in Massachusetts shows. Interior designer Jayme Kennerknecht and her husband, Daniel Simonelli, share this home with their dog, Cooper. Potted plants in a framing arrangement guide visitors to the front door, and the stairs are potentially a great place to sit, relax and take in the view.

Read more about this Colonial home in Massachusetts

Dennis Thompson Architect

8. The open porch. An addition was all Sherri Bryan and Tim Dewar needed to ensure this Victorian home in Santa Barbara, California, would be their family’s forever home. Besides adding on to make room for themselves and their two children, the couple gave the home a new paint job that enhances the exterior’s cheerful street view. Two lounge chairs on the open front porch, close to the sidewalk, connect with the neighborhood and anyone who might be playing in the front yard.

Window paint: Meteorite, General Paint; casing paint: Direct Appeal, General Paint; siding paint: Hard Wired, General Paint; column paint: Cottage White, Dunn Edwards

Read more about this historic Victorian in Santa Barbara

Lisa Atkinson Photographer

9. The classic white picket fence. Sometimes the front yard needs a fence — to keep the dogs in or provide a barrier on a busy street. What more welcoming feature to include than a white picket fence? It’s what sold Pete Whitehead and Krissy Brown on their house 12 years ago, and it surely attracts the attention of those who pass by in the Melbourne, Australia, neighborhood. Planters in front and behind soften the fence with evergreen foliage, and an entry gate front and center makes it easy to reach the front door.

Read more about this family home in Melbourne

Studio Zerbey Architecture + Interiors

10. Lots of windows. Lots of windows and a glass front door open up Kyle and Lauren Zerbey’s Craftsman home to the street, presenting a welcoming, transparent facade rather than a towering fortress. This much exposure might not be possible in all neighborhoods or situations, but the Zerbeys benefit from their home sitting high above their Seattle street. The architect couple have worked extensively on this home, and documented it on their blog, Chezerbey.

Read more about this remodeled Seattle bungalow

11. Bright colors and potted plants. This front courtyard in Exeter, Australia, regains some of the softness of a planted landscape through extensive use of plants in terra-cotta pots and built-in planters along courtyard’s front walls. Bright lounge furniture and a wild front door lend a playfulness to the space, as do the repetition of the pots and their sculptural cacti and succulents.

Read more about this church conversion in Australia

Design Fixation [Faith Provencher]

12. A planted pathway. This long, winding entry walk feels more like a cottage garden path than a path from the driveway to the front door. Flowering shrubs and window boxes edge the path without enveloping it, urging visitors along as they make their way to the front door. While this photo was taken in winter, the cherry-red door and quarterboard next to the door enhance the front yard’s year-round appeal.

Read more about this cozy Cape Cod vacation home

Alexandra Crafton

13. New face to the street. This renovation was truly a labor of love, as Amanda and Joshua Price worked to give their four children the rustic country experience they had growing up, which included the home they lived in. An open porch, mixtures of warm, earthy hues and even some seasonal decorating offer a friendlier face than the previous exterior to all who pass by.

Siding: Scottish Thistle, Mastic Home Exteriors; rock facing: Arcadian ridge stone and Cape Cod granite, Haristone

Read more about this farmhouse style home in Idaho

Searl Lamaster Howe Architects

14. Soft, environmental lighting. This modern Tudor home, designed by Greg Howe of Searl Lamaster Howe Architects, remembers to be welcoming, even when the sun goes down. With its expansive, light-filled windows and subtle landscape lighting, this home in the Chicago suburbs lights the way for the homeowners, as well as for neighborhood walkers.

Read about this new home with Mediterranean style outside of Chicago

One Girl Interiors

15. Entry bench. Suzanne and Adam Cunningham’s vacation cottage, built in 1900, features a wide covered deck that’s nearly flush with the entry walk, making for a smooth transition from home to garden. Rather than placing it inside the entry, the couple put a colorful wood bench next to the front door to provide a convenient place to sit, rest or leave your shoes — all with a much more enjoyable view. Because the extra-wide deck is covered, it can host activities that usually would take place elsewhere.

Read more about this Australian cottage

Tell us: How have you created a welcoming and neighborly front entry? Upload your pictures in the Comments.

More: 8 Ways to Create a Neighborly Front Yard

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Cyndi Laddon

Little Free Library. Cedar bench. Water spigot and a dog bowl. Making sense of what was 2000 sq ft of a very thirsty front lawn in San Diego, Ca

14 Likes May 8, 2016 at 8:16AM

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Brig Oulette

Our house in Tahoe has a small backyard with no privacy and a deep front yard on a quiet street with lovely neighbors. So we have a picnic table on the front deck and a couple of adirondack chairs around a small firepit on the driveway by the house. Works well.

3 Likes May 11, 2016 at 7:56AM

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User

I love setting up a comfortable seating area in front of the home and have done so for years. It has a welcoming and inviting feel for my family and our guests!