How to Choose

These planning tips will help you make appropriate color choices to liven up your home's exterior.

 

Neutral tones impart a Craftsman feel.

A house's style is a cue to its paint treatment. If your house has no particular style, paint it in colors that appeal to you. However, if your home is a colonial, Greek Revival, Prairie, or other distinctive style, respecting the integrity of the original architecture is important.

Colonials, for example, are like gentlemen; they require attractive, yet conservative clothing. A simple three-color combination, such as blue-gray siding blended with tan trim and muted red accents, creates period curb appeal.

Do you want to make your home look bigger or smaller? A dark body color or a trim color that is darker than the main body color can make a house appear smaller. A light body color can make it appear larger.

The larger the house, the more colors it can bear. If your house is two or three stories tall and you want more than one shade of the principal body color, it makes sense to apply the darkest shade on the first floor, medium on the second floor, and the lightest on the third floor. If the dark color is on top, you risk making the house appear top-heavy. The exception is houses with shingled upper stories; traditionally, these homes are painted a lighter shade on the lower story.

No matter how great your house looks, if it is out of context with the neighboring homes, it will not look good and neither will your block. So if all the houses are white and you want a dark house, you're better off with a midtone instead of a dark color. Harmony is more important where houses are close together. In neighborhoods with spacious lots or visual buffers of foliage, paint schemes can be more individual.

Take color cues from your landscaping. A house surrounded by woodlands looks jarring painted in pastels, but natural in earth tones. Climate plays a role, too. Imagine your proposed paint color in stark, snowy winter as well as in lush, leafy summer. Sunbelt houses can wear bright colors; in a cold climate, bright shades can look cartoonish on a gray day. Remember that colors intensify and look brighter in daylight on the outside of a house than they do on the color card in the store.

Brick, slate, stone, and concrete are known as fixed, or given, elements because you cannot, or probably would not, change them. You could paint brick and vinyl siding, but doing so would only increase maintenance. In general, the foundation color should be the same or darker than the siding color.

Coordinate paint colors with your home's roof covering. Roofing can be as prominent in area as siding. Its color must relate harmoniously to the siding and trim colors if the paint scheme is to succeed. Because roofing is designed to last 15 to 20 years or more -- and a coat of paint one-third of that -- it's obvious which surface is easier to change.