Choosing colors for the exterior of your home is a task that many folks struggle with, in a big way. Painting your home isn’t exactly inexpensive and a paint job can be a 10-year (or longer) commitment. I would love for you to schedule a Color Consultation with me, but maybe that’s not in your budget or you’d just rather go it alone. Either way, any tips I can offer to make choosing those exterior colors a little easier is my goal.
2 FAQ’s
Let’s take a look at a couple of questions that are asked during every consult.
- Should my roof color be considered when choosing exterior colors for my home?
- What about my storm door, should I consider the color of my storm door when choosing an exterior color?
These are two great questions that I thought might be worth diving into a little deeper.
What Color Is Your Roof?
If you look at your house, I don’t mean glance, but really look at your house, you will see that some of your color options have already been chosen for you. These are the things that are not being painted. I’m referring to your windows, any stone or brick you may have, landscaping, windows, and your roof. Now, take a good look at your roof. What color is it? What material is it made of? Roofing materials have their own colors. The popular colors I see in the areas I work in the most are weathered browns and grays, and black, and occasionally a terra cotta or wood shingle.
Your exterior paint color doesn’t need to match the roof, but it does need to jive. Choosing a paint color that harmonizes with the roof color is much cheaper than actually replacing the roof. For example, if your roof is brown, I would use a color that has similar undertones for the body. Warm blues and greens, greiges, tans, creams, these are just a few colors that would work well with certain brown roofs. Cooler blues and greens, grays, whites…these would all look great with certain gray roofs. A brown house with a gray roof doesn’t look well thought out at all.
What Color Is Your Storm Door?
Next, let’s look at the storm door. Believe it or not, the color and type of storm door you have does need to be considered when choosing colors. Generally, the window color and the storm door color should match. Sometimes the storm door matches the front door (maybe they’re both black) and they’re both different than the window color (which might be white). That works! Another option would be to match trim color to the storm door color.
I don’t recommend painting storm doors unless it is a door you never use (lots of folks just go in and out of their garage doors), or you don’t mind repainting. A storm door has a greater chance of being scratched because it is used so often. It could end up looking like a tiger mauled it after a while.
Another Tip Relating To Storm Doors:
Sometimes my clients want a pop of color on their front door. I’m all for that! I love a good pop of color, for sure. However, if they have a storm door, it is generally hard to see that pretty pop of color on their front door.
There are different types of storm doors, some offer a full, glass view, while others have dark screens on half or all of the door. A full, glass view storm door will show the pop of color better than if it is behind a screen. A screen can actually make the door color appear much darker. My recommendation is to forgo the pop of color if you have a storm door. It would be better to use the trim color or accent color that might already be used on shutters and garage doors. The only other options would be to use an extremely bold color or ditch the storm door altogether.
As I mentioned before, choosing exterior colors for your home can be a struggle. Do yourself a favor and don’t ride that bus, call me instead. A Color Consult usually takes less than an hour, you don’t have to leave your home, and a consult with a professional will save you money in the long run…money and frustration. You need to love what you see when you pull up to your home, because how you feel when you see the outside of your home sets the tone for how you feel when you’re inside your home. I’ll help you get it right. 816-500-7759.
