Gingham Dreams crowns a 25th-floor apartment in Mumbai, India, with a vivid sense of order and play. Conceived by MuseLAB for a three-generational family, the home replaces conventional luxury with gingham-patterned marble, saturated color, and a social core that draws people toward long views of the Arabian Sea. Every room carries the grid in a different register, turning daily rituals into small encounters with pattern and craft.

Private Villa stands on the hills above Castellina Marittima, Italy, where ANDstudio Architects guide the restoration of a historic house into a layered rural retreat. The project pairs renewed structure and a new pool with expressive interiors, folding contemporary art, saturated color, and generous volumes into the villa’s long, arched rooms. Visitors move through vaulted halls and bright salons that keep the building’s past in view while easing present-day country life.

METT Barcelona occupies the historic Gran Hotel La Florida above Barcelona, Spain, where Kokaistudios reworks interiors for a renewed hilltop hotel. The project turns a once-fragmented landmark into a Mediterranean-inflected retreat, balancing restored ceilings and balustrades with new wood-and-fabric elements across public rooms, wellness zones, and guestrooms. Old grandeur stays present, yet the atmosphere now leans toward calm hospitality suited to contemporary travelers.

Curb appeal can be a matter of personal taste, but some eye-catching exterior improvements clearly make your home look more attractive, cared for and welcoming. Whether you are hoping to boost your home’s value and attract potential buyers or you simply want to enjoy a more beautiful space, here are seven project ideas to add some wow factor to your exterior and recommendations for trusted contractors that can bring your vision to life.

Clay Rise sits in the village of West Hoathly in West Sussex, United Kingdom, as a new three-bedroom house by architecture and interior practice Templeton Ford. The project grows from the hillside next to Andre Templeton Ford’s childhood home, translating the brick cottages and clay tiles of the area into a contemporary dwelling shaped for shared and evolving family life. Its calm presence masks a highly tuned, flexible arrangement within.

Halcyon House is a family house in Singapore by Ming Architects, conceived as a bright retreat for daily life and generous entertaining. A raised double-height living room, feature staircase, and car porch lounge anchor the home, while carefully chosen materials keep the interiors mellow and calm. The result is a layered composition where light, shadow, and volume shape how the family and their friends gather and move.

Hideaway House stands on an elevated plot in eastern Singapore, shaped by Ming Architects as both climate response and urban refuge. The house rises three metres above the street to meet flood regulations and push daily life away from the traffic, turning the main rooms inward toward filtered light, private gardens, and quiet views. An intricate skin of metal screens and natural finishes deepens the sense of withdrawal from the suburban row outside.

Oval House anchors a gated neighborhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina with a quiet yet assertive concrete presence by Jorgelina Tortorici & Asociados. The house wraps an internal oval courtyard, turning what could be a suburban perimeter into an inward-looking sequence of rooms and voids that balance openness, privacy, and controlled light. Everyday life gathers around this carved interior world, where marble, oak, and glass temper the rigor of the concrete shell.