Choosing an exterior paint color
Why Choosing Exterior Paint Colors is Harder Than You Think
Choosing exterior paint colors sounds easy until you have to buckle down and do it. Between roof color, stone, trim, sunlight, and undertones, picking an exterior color scheme can quickly become overwhelming. After repainting our own home this year, I learned a few lessons the hard way that might save you from making the same mistakes.
Even Realtors make silly mistakes. When we built our house in 2013, we didn’t notice that the subcontractor “touched up” the front exterior James Hardie siding with the wrong color/sheen of paint. When the sun shone on the front of the house, it was terribly obvious and looked like polka dots across the upper level of our house. Over time, it only got more pronounced as the exterior colors faded from the sun.
I finally declared that this was the year to have the front repainted. I was tired of the old colors and wanted something fresh. Something new. How hard could that be?
Turns out, much harder than I thought.
We live in a cul-de-sac so when someone turns onto the street, our house is square in front of you. In your face. Waving to say ‘hello.’ Our paint choice would set the tone for the entire neighborhood. It had to inspire children, give adults the courage to make bold life decisions, and maybe even bring about world peace. No pressure.
Maybe that’s overstating it. But based on my neurotic studying of paint swatches, AI programs, color experts, and painted samples, you’d have thought my choice of the perfect paint color would bring world peace.
The stone has touches of mauve in it so I wanted to pull out more of that tone than do another “safe” neutral color. But variegated stone colors look very different up-close than they do from a distance. Our siding is a cream-color so I knew we couldn’t go with grey undertones. But mauve can look pink if done wrong and we didn’t want that either. And the trim? We have white vinyl windows so we thought white trim would pair nicely and make the windows look larger. But our gutters, soffit, and fascia are off-white so we had to choose something more white than we had but not so white that it made the gutters look yellow. Urgh.
Even though I’m still not sure our chosen colors work with the stone, I LOVE the colors we chose. I know our front door color should be changed as well but that can be next year’s conundrum. The one thing I completely overlooked was the color of the roof. Our roof has warm brown tones, while the new paint leans much cooler. Of course, I had to upload pictures of the fresh exterior paint into an AI program to play with different roof colors. And needless to say, now we’re just WAITING for a hail storm so we can get a roof that complements the paint.
Takeaways when choosing a new exterior paint scheme:
Think About Permanent Features
Your roof, stone, brick, and concrete aren't changing. Choose paint that complements those elements rather than competing with them.
Test Colors in Different Lighting
Paint can look completely different on a sunny afternoon than it does on an overcast winter day.
Paint Large Test Samples
The paint chips you’ll find in-store are nearly useless outdoors- they’re too small. Even when I ordered adhesive 9” x 15” swatches from Samplize, they weren’t very helpful. It wasn’t until we painted a piece of sheetrock scrap and put it up next to the house that we got a true idea of what the color might look like. The nice thing about that option is that you can move it around to different areas of the exterior to see how it looks, for instance, under the front porch where it’s shaded vs. next to a garage door where there is bright sun.
Don’t Forget the Driveway
A black asphalt driveway reflects different tones than gray concrete. It seems minor, but it changes how paint colors are perceived.
Don’t Rely on AI
AI can be a useful tool for previewing exterior paint colors and narrowing your choices, but even the best computer screens show only a fraction of the colors the human eye can see. The final paint color will almost never look exactly like the AI mockup.
Click here for 5 tips on improving curb appeal
In the end, I learned that choosing exterior paint colors doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to feel right for your home. I'm glad we went bold, and I only wish we'd done it sooner. And remember, if you hate the color you choose, it's only paint. You can always repaint it.
