Your existing house is not a blank canvas. Even though this house is white without any other fixed elements that might help determine the colour, the style eliminates many options already.
1. The architectural style of the home is the first step to consider when choosing a new colour for your home. A modern house like the one shown above would not work if painted your favourite shade of periwinkle blue, like on this Victorian style home (below).
2. Location. The neighborhood you live in must be considered so that your home fits into the surroundings and blends with the other houses on the street. My sister lives in an older neighborhood with 50’s style homes, however the house across the street, is a bright mint green colour which is so wrong for the era of the house (well I'm not sure which era would fit with a bright minty green colour) and also totally sticks out on the street she lives on. It just screams something like “this is my favourite colour” or "oops I didn’t know colours get ‘twice as bright’ when they go up"!!
Once you have determined the architectural style of the home in addition to the neighborhood, the next step is the colour of the fixed elements already on your home. These elements are natural starting points for building a exterior colour palette.
3. What colour is the roof?
This house is an great example with the red roof and this colour scheme is well done as the neutral picked for the siding (field colour) is neutral which keeps the roof the most important element in this colour scheme. The roof colour has also been repeated in the window trim which ties it into the exterior colour scheme.
4. Is there any stone or brick on the house?
This house is so colour coordinated with the brick you almost don’t notice where the colour starts and the brick ends. But it’s a great example of the fact that you must consider the existing stone or brick on the house before you finalize the colour.
5. Are the windows vinyl and/or can they be painted?
There are 2 standard colours for vinyl windows. White or a greeny biege. If you go with vinyl, (which more and more people are doing now as vinyl windows are 30% less expensive than wood), that colour then becomes a fixed element that you cannot ignore! Therefore, make sure you repeat it somewhere on the house (like in the fascia as shown above), or it will be simply be too obvious that your windows are vinyl (a fixed colour).
Stay tuned for more on choosing colour for the exterior of your home now that the season is here!
Related Posts:
How to Test Exterior Colours - 3 Steps to get it Right
Should your Interior Colours Flow with the Exterior of your House?
The Best Exterior Trim Colours NOT Cloud White
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