Exterior Accent Color Trends Some interior colors, once on the wall can change how they look depending on the light that you use in that room or the light that comes in through the windows. But, for exterior paint, it works a little differently. In fact, exterior hues can change the entire look of the home, the front of the house in the yard, or even the neighborhood street as a whole. Because of this, a lot of homeowners get really stressed out and overwhelmed when it comes to picking the perfect paint schemes for their homes. One of the things to thing about is this; the paint you chose will depend on a few factors which include landscape, Hardscape, roofing colors and materials and much more. Because of this, you should make sure that everything ties together, and that nothing is really bizarrely out of place. Below, you will find 3 tips in choosing the right colors as well as a few sample paints for specific homes. Think About Your Neighbors Not many people care what their neighbor’s house is painted in or what hue it is, but you should consider it. Not to copy it though. Just look and see on your specific street what people tend to go with. Do you see me warm colors, how about more cool colors? Maybe most of the homes on your street are neutral colors? If that's the case, then you too should consider painting your house in the same color zone as your neighbors. Some houses have a home owners association and this means you will only be able to paint your house certain colors. But, even if you don’t have one, you might not want to be the weird house on the corner that painted their house mint green, when everyone else chose to paint theirs a more neutral color. Just something to think about! The Style of Your Home Not only the style, but the era. Chances are if you have a modern home, you will choose more neutral colors. If you have a more traditional home, it will probably have a white base, with red or black trim and accents. On the other hand, if you have a Victorian Home, you might have some crazy looking colors, but they are period appropriate colors! Victorian homes have very intricate details, and they also tend to have stand out hues. Most Victorian homes also have 3-8 colors on the house, where as something like a
modern or traditional home, probably only have 2-3. The style and period of your house will matter in terms of colors. I know for me personally, if you told me your house was traditional in style and then you painted it charcoal black as a base with a lime green door, well, I’d be pretty surprised considering that’s not the style of a traditional style home! Go Bold If
you’ve owned your own home for a while now and you’ve always been pretty strict with the color schemes you choose, and it’s starting to get boring, maybe it IS time for a change? While I would never suggest you paint your home like a Japanese tea garden (purple, black, greens, yellows) I will suggest placing bold paint on certain features like the garage door, or even the front door, but do it tastefully. 1964 Split Level Home This is a home that is a split level. The bottom part of the home is done in tan brick, while the top of the house is wood, and done in a really nice yellow color - very light. The windows, door and garage are all done with white paint. It’s nice, but I can also see how it would get boring after a while. For this example, we will be using Reflecting Pool SW6486, Nuance SW7049 and Mindful Gray SW7016. Instead of the yellow color for the siding, you would use the Gray color. Instead of the door being white or yellow, you would user the Reflecting pool. It’s a really beautiful color of blue, but not something you would necessarily want to use on the whole house. Then the trim would be done using the Nuance which is a gray paint mixed with a little tiny bit of gray - gray is really popular this year! Traditional Home with White Siding and Red Brick Traditional homes like this one can get pretty old, pretty quickly. It’s a traditional home, so this is not something where you want to go insane with in terms of colors go, but you can still use other colors besides the white base, and black on the shutters as well as the white around the windows. For this example, we will be using Cottage Red, Midsummer Night 2134-20, Maritime White 963 and Texas Leather AC-3. The cottage red will be used on the door, and only on the door. The black is taken from the shutters and instead
replaced with the Midsummer Night - a really nice dark gray color. The siding is going to stay white. The brick, believe it or not, will be painted Texas Leather which is a really beautiful color of gray, with an undertone of brown in it, which looks great with the other three colors. Usually you don’t paint red brick, but if you want to paint the house a different color and the red brick isn’t working for your color scheme, you don’t really have a choice but to paint it! Streamline Modern Style Home If you have a home that is super modern like an art modern home with lots of different layers and textures on the outside of the home, you might just consider painting it all one color. But, I can tell you that this will make the home look really boring, really quickly. Instead, use four colors for the ribbing, body base, garage door and the balconies. Here we will be using Sweet Tea GLO28, Bronzed Ivy GLN23, Elegant Lace and Prairie Sage GLG22. The Sweet tea will be used for the garage door; it’s a really nice brown with undertones of red. For the ribbing on the house it’s a sort of greenish gray color. Very different, but it goes really well with the brown garage door. The main color is going to use Elegant Lace with is a really light gray color. And for the balconies you will be using Prairie Safe which is also a gray color with undertones of brown.