Reinventing your home in a day

(ARA) – With more homeowners choosing to stay in their homes longer and the full supply of existing housing stock, decorative siding accessories are providing a touch of personal style for rejuvenating and updating America’s family homes.

Appeal-adding updates could be as simple as the quick installation of two pairs of shutters and window headers for a smaller home, or a door surround and five or six pairs of shutters and sunbursts for a larger home.

Accessories like these make a significant difference and help transform the facade and complete feel of a home. Other products include dentil trim, specialty siding shapes and decorative gable vents.

“If your siding is 10 or 12 years old and still in good shape, one way to really give yourself a quick transformation is by simply adding color and dimension with some siding decor,” says Jonathan Wierengo, vice president of marketing for The Tapco Group, maker of Mid-America Siding Components.

“We’ve had a number of contractors tell us about curb appeal makeovers that people are doing for $1,000 or $1,200, where you can have five or six pairs of shutters and something like a door surround,” says Wierengo.

While installing these exterior accents is accomplished in a matter of hours, their

beauty benefits last for decades. With Mid-America’s SolidThru color technology and limited lifetime warranty, no painting, staining or sealing are ever required.

The vinyl shutters from Mid-America offer virtually limitless ways to bring excitement, and make a colorful starting point for one of these affordable multi-faceted makeovers. Whether shutters are for two windows or a set of five, the difference with charismatic color and depth is dramatic. Standard shutter styles include Cathedral Open Louver, Williamsburg Raised Panel, and spaced or joined Board-N-Batten Shutters. Customizable louvered shutters allow offset mullions, extra panels and optional shutter tops for added elegance. Available decorative S-hooks can further distinguish with a romantic touch.

Shutters can combine with sunbursts or window headers to frame a window with robust style. Elliptical and half-round sunbursts bring a brighter feel, while sunburst kits pair half-round designs with either flat-panel or classic-dentil headers for added flair.

The timeless style of window headers projects a refined look. For a front door, a header is combined with twin pilasters to create a door surround conveying subtle strength. The pilasters’ crisp vertical lines deliver a grander entryway. The eye-pleasing dimension of a door surround can also be used to uniquely frame a garage door.

For an expressive combination, a door surround can be paired with the lively contrast of specialty siding shapes. Mid-America’s popular Round specialty shapes provide textured accents for gables and contrasting color around a home’s second story. Five other shapes are offered in white, including Half Cove and Mitered Corner profiles, lending contrast to shingle-style siding or combining with colorful Round shapes for uniquely elaborate exteriors.

Dentil trim is another accent available for upper exteriors, delivering timeless elegance and immediate architectural distinction. Square Tooth and Scalloped Tooth Dentil Trim create substance all the way around a home with harmonious interplays of light and shadow.

Decorative Gable Vents (non-functional) are simple yet impactful. Combining with shutters, window headers or other accents, they help unify a home’s appearance. Available in Round, Octagon, Square and Rectangle profiles, these ornaments can complement or contrast existing trim or siding.

Smaller details also do their part to generate serenity and a more finished look. Cost-effective, color-coordinated mount blocks and vents deliver crisper, cleaner appearances for light fixtures, electrical outlets, exhaust vents and more. Blocks and vents come in the industry’s widest color spectrum, matching vinyl and fiber cement siding makers’ color availability. With innovative trim rings that snap on in a flash, they hide imperfections like heavy caulking and unseemly cut ends.

Mid-America Siding Components enhance various architecture styles and can be directly installed on exteriors ranging from brick, fiber cement and vinyl to wood, stone veneer and stucco. From modest homes to those in luxurious neighborhoods, a selection of these decorative accents can reinvent a home’s exterior with captivating new appeal.

SturdiMount fiber cement mounts are the pre-flashed, pre-assembled mounts that are manufactured of fiber cement with an ABS flange. Easily installed, they offer the versatility to mount everything from dryer vents and coach lights to hose bibs and receptacle outlets. SturdiMount products are the first fiber cement mount blocks and the only ones to carry the “Recommended by James Hardie” logo.

Mid-America Siding Components is a division of The Tapco Group, a U.S. Green Building Council member. For more information, visit www.MidAmericaComponents.com or call 800-521-8486.