What Color Should I Paint the Exterior of My Home?

Trying to decide what colors to paint the exterior of your house can be extremely difficult and stressful. You don’t want to pick colors that will make your home seem flat and featureless nor do you want to pick colors that are too bold because they might overwhelm the architecture. The best paint colors will highlight the most beautiful features of your home. Skillful use of color can even disguise design flaws, boosting the curb appeal and market value of your house. Here are some easy tips on how to choose the right color to paint your home’s exterior.

1. Consider Your Homes History

If you’re planning to paint an older home, you may want to use a historically accurate color scheme. You can hire a pro to analyze old paint chips and recreate the original color. Your friends at Korth & Shannahan can always help you with this by taking your paint samples to the local Wallauer’s paint department. You can also refer to a historic color chart in order to select shades that might have been used at the time your home was built.

2. Modernize Your Color

Instead of choosing historically accurate colors, some people prefer to paint their houses modern colors to dramatize architectural details. Using bright colors on old architectural details can produce startling and exciting results. However, before making the decision to paint your home a fluorescent color, it’s a good idea to look at the colors of the homes and buildings in the surrounding area. Although you may want your home to stand out and not to be the exact color of your neighbors home, you also do not want your home to stand out amongst the traditional colors of Westchesters’ homes.

3. Use Your Homes Natural Surroundings

The landscape around your house is blooming with color ideas. Trees may suggest an earthy palette of greens and browns. A beach setting might suggest vivid blues, turquoises, and coral colors. Even the garden in your front yard can inspire exciting color combinations.

4. Consider Things That Won’t Be Painted

Every home has some features that will not be painted. Because of this, you want to make sure that the exterior paint color you choose harmonizes with the colors already present on the exterior of your house.

5. Focus on Each Detail Separately

Depending on the size and complexity of your home, you may want to choose multiple colors. You can choose different colors for your siding, shutters, moldings, doors, window sashes, and porch decks. Try to balance between using too many colors and causing your home’s exterior to become overwhelming and using too few colors which can make your house seem flat and uninteresting. When using different colors may also help to stay within the same color family. Using lighter and darker shades of the same color may be more attractive on your home rather than using dramatically different colors which can end up clashing.

6. Use Light to Add Size

It’s no wonder large, grand estates are often painted white. Light colors make a building look larger, and white is the favored color for traditional classical architecture. You can add to your home’s sense of size and dignity by using white or pale cream color.

7. Go Dark to Stand Out

Dark siding or dark bands of trim will make your house seem smaller but will draw more attention to details. For exteriors, accent recesses with darker shades and highlight details with lighter tones.

We hope these tips help you to make your decision on what color to paint the exterior of your home. If you still need some help narrowing down your colors feel free to reach out to us at Korth & Shannahan for assistance.