What Are Your Options for Exterior Remodeling?

While renovating the interior of your building is important for your employees and customers, remodeling the exterior and structural base of your property can also increase your building’s value and draw in new customers with great new curb appeal.

Minor Exterior Remodeling

This involves replacing finishes, casework, doors, trim, furnishings, and other cosmetic items to give a building a new look, while leaving walls, partitions, structure, and building systems intact. On the exterior, you can start with simple repainting or, in the case of masonry, cleaning and tuckpointing. This is the easiest and least expensive option.

Apply New Exterior Finishes Right Over Existing Finishes

A common way to do this is to use an exterior insulation and finish system. This involves gluing lightweight styrofoam pre-molded panels over the existing building exterior and then coating the panels with stucco. The panels can be made to resemble almost any kind of texture/ornamentation/design you can imagine, as can the stucco. Using this method, it’s possible to create simulated brick, metal panels, even stone that looks surprisingly realistic, in addition to a conventional stucco appearance. It’s relatively inexpensive and has the added benefit of adding insulation to the building.

Reskin Your Building

This is the most extensive (and expensive) option. Rather than simply repaint or otherwise improve the existing exterior, you can remove the veneer and replace it with a new exterior. The office building shown here, for example, replaced existing traditional siding with new porcelain panels to transform it from a very traditional-looking building to one that looks sleek and modern. Windows and doors are also replaced.

Additional Major Remodeling/Renovation Tasks

Other options include demolishing existing partitions and erecting new ones to create new rooms and spaces. This would also involve replacement or upgrades of building systems such as boilers, furnaces, ductwork, electrical panels and distribution, and lighting. These updates can be motivated by age/obsolescence/energy efficiency or because of major changes in the building’s layout. You’d usually resort to this only when the original spaces and systems no longer meet your functional and operational needs.

Remodeling or renovating your building doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing, and an experienced architect will be able to help guide you through the best options for your budget. For more information, please visit our Architecture Services page.