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7 Tips For Choosing Exterior Home Color
April 30, 2010
Choosing a new color scheme for your home's exterior can be exciting, but also daunting without some help to guide you in the process. Here are some tips to help you choose a color scheme with confidence.
Look Around
What do the other houses in your neighborhood look like? What colors do you like and dislike on other homes? Homes that are the same style as your own are often particularly good visual examples.
Be In-Synch
With your neighbors, that is. If all the houses around you are white and you want to paint yours black, that could make your home stand out like a sore thumb, and even affect property values in your neighborhood. You may be better off compromising a bit and choosing a mid-range shade.
Style Matters
Considering the style of your home should play an important role in choosing a color scheme. What works for a Victorian home will not neccessarily work on a cottage-style home. Look into traditional suggestions for your home style and find out which colors might work best.
Look At Landscaping
You can draw great inspiration from the nature all around you. In the fall, does your yard or neighborhood offer stunning red and orange foliage? Are there beautiful flowers in your garden in a shade you love? Take your cues from nature, and consider how your exterior home color scheme will look in all seasons.
Remember the Roof
After all, it's just as visible as the rest of your home's exterior, and should be considered when choosing a color scheme. Ideally, your color choices will create harmony with the roof, siding, and trim. Remember that roofs are generally made to last for thirty to forty years, while paint has a considerably shorter lifespan.
Play With Proportions
If there are features of your home that you'd like to play up or down, consider how color scheme could help achieve this. For instance, lighter colors generally make a home appear larger, while darker colors tend to shrink the size.
Choose Several Colors
Brick or stone homes generally use two colors: one for the trim and one for accents such as doors and shutters. The brick or stone siding is considered a "fixed element", meaning it is not painted. For other types of homes, choosing siding presents a third color option, perhaps the most important because it will be the main color of the home. In this case, you'll want three harmonious colors.
With these tips in mind, you can choose a color scheme that suits the needs of your home, your neighborhood, and most importantly, yourself.
