How to Transform Your Home with Timber Cladding
If the exterior of your home needs a makeover, it can be difficult to know where to begin. For homes with plain exteriors and particularly those with flat walls, adding timber cladding to your exterior design can have a big impact on the way that your home looks and feels. There’s nothing quite like the look of real wood cladding, whether you install it in a horizontal lap over the entirety of your home, or you do a shiplap accent of certain areas. Learn how to change the way your home looks with timber cladding to reap all the benefits it can bring.
Where to Add Timber Cladding
Wood cladding is one of the most versatile materials for home exteriors. Wood is warm, long wearing, and comes in a wide range of different styles and sizes, as well as installation types. So, while it’s always possible to simply cover your home in wood cladding from top to bottom, this isn’t always the most effective way to update your home’s style.
Begin by looking at your home’s architecture, to help get ideas for where to add timber cladding to your exterior design. Homes with very plain, flat exteriors work the best because the transformation is the most impressive. Homes with a lot of “gingerbread” or ornate woodwork may not be the best choices to install new cladding on, simply because there is so much to work around.
Once you’ve identified your home’s architectural style, start picking out the areas you want to highlight with cladding. For example, if you have home with an upper-story addition that stands out differently from the rest of the home, cladding just this section will make it pop even more, bringing attention to the detail and making the whole house have more dimension and interest.
Other areas you may want to consider adding cladding to include:
- The upper or lower half of a home with another material or style of cladding installed on the other portion
- In peaks, or beneath the roof line to show off the shape of the home
- As an accent wall along an addition, or wing of a home
- On the sides of the home if they meet the main house at a 90-degree angle
Types of Cladding Styles
The best part about wood cladding is the fact that it can be installed in so many different ways. You can use these different styles to help produce a variety of effects on your home’s exterior design by mixing and matching, installing different types of cladding over different areas of the home, or by using different styles of cladding to enhance certain parts of your home’s architecture.
Most people are familiar with the style of cladding known as Dutch lap or horizontal lap. In this style of cladding, each plank overlaps the next slightly on top. This gives the home a more traditional appearance. Dutch lap cladding works best when used over the entirety of the home’s exterior, or covering an addition or solid wall.
Shiplap cladding is an older style that recently gained a lot of popularity for contemporary buildings and transitional homes. In this style, the planks are laid directly beside one another, usually horizontally, but they can be installed vertically using the same methods. This gives a cleaner look to the home, with a sleeker profile to the exterior design. Shiplap makes an excellent accent when used in strategic areas of the home that you want to call attention to.
Wood cladding can also be installed in a vertical board-and-batten style where the cladding is met with a batten or thinner, higher profile plank between the boards. This is another traditional style that has pockets of popularity, particularly along the coasts. It works well on additions, outbuildings, and “wings” of homes that are set off slightly from the rest, giving this area its own appearance that is separate from the rest of the property.
Cladding Finishes
There’s nothing like real wood when it comes to the home cladding. The natural look of wood can enhance any building, particularly when left to age and weather naturally. Look for natural wood cladding that has a stain or natural finish, rather than paint. The natural look of the wood and wood grain add a lot of depth to the home or building; paint and artificial finishes end up taking away from the look of the wood. Timber cladding, in particular, has a natural appearance that calls to mind rustic and rural settings that can be very appealing to homeowners looking for a home with character.
Clad Your Home
Adding timber wood cladding to your home’s exterior design can really transform the way it appears. Consider using real wood cladding on your home to help bring out its best in every way.
