If all description is a part of character (that is, if all the description you put in a novel reflects your POV character or narrator), then a lot of description is the character’s first impression of a thing. Not just “what would your character notice” about a thing, but “what would your character notice that he’s noticing?”
For example, Bill in Alien Blue would probably look at the front of my house and notice that it was red and yellow with a front lawn going to seed and a “Solicitors will be fed to the dragon” sign on the front. But his first impression would be that the front yard was as scraggly as a hippie’s ass. —He would have met Lee before he walked in the door.
I never thought about this! I would think this would be easier writing in first-person than in third-person. Damn my penchant for third-person!
I know! I tend to write in first person, but I’m starting on a third with two different POVs. It’s going to be a bitch.