Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Exterior Paint Saga

What should we paint the exterior of our house??? 
This is what it looked like at least a few years ago. I found this by searching the house on Google maps! Try it if you just moved into an older house - maybe it will be a different looking house and you'll get as big of a kick out of seeing how it used to look. Google maps is so amazing.  

This has been a helpful reference for seeing the house colors divided up differently from how it is today. Today the house walls are all one color, I think I like it better this way:


Below is the house in the neighborhood we really like and decided how we want it to look. Nice grey-green, ivory, and red. I think of it as an army jacket, with an ivory shirt and red lipstick in terms of proportions. We bought the paint and tested it, but I just don't love it. The red was too heavy on the green, and not enough white to give the colors a chance to breathe. The reason is our house has white cross bars on the windows, whereas they've painted theirs red. Tocco promises me we shouldn't/can't/do not want to paint our crossbars red, so they must stay white. But then that means that the shutters and trim become red and that throws off the color proportions completely. Read straight on green is too much!  So we can't do that. At all.

Here's the paint sample we were working with and example:

So now I've moved away from the red and am thinking blue-grey as the second color. Steel, slate, nautical, neutral, all good images to me. Plus I think the blue next to the green is easier on the eyes since they are analogous colors, not complementary. 


A few examples around that theme:



And my favorite (for now) and one for which I think I'll buy a sample to test at home. Where they have the "casa blanca" color we'll try something a bit more white:


Other pretty ideas:





What do you think/like? THE PAINTERS ARE COMING THIS WEEKEND. Help! But really, anything is better than what it is now...  puke.



5 comments:

  1. I like the sage/grey/candy variation best. It reminds me of the sea. But I'd go a bit paler, so that the house doesn't literally rocket into the skies because of the vertical wood panels. Hope that helps :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's what I like about those colors too. Thanks Nic! That helps!

      Delete
  2. Sorry, I'm just now seeing this post. I love all your suggestions and ideas above and really like the way it turned out in real life! We want an "after-paint" post! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like the rare grey, Casablanca and pewter green. What Bram paint is this?

    ReplyDelete