OJM Painting & Sheetrock Repair LLC
It’s common knowledge that you should paint your house exterior every 7 to 10 years. Probably, you are here because your house may need a fresh coat of paint since its exterior has lost its color, charm, and appeal. For instance, when your exterior paint is fading, chipping, peeling, or blistering, it’s time to get exterior house painting services.
When painting your house, you need to consider two important aspects. One, you’ll make your house look like new. Two, you’ll protect your house from the harsh weather.
Alright!
Now that you know you need to paint your house, the hard part is deciding the colors.
The tricky part here is that color is a subjective thing. The other tricky part is that there are endless color palettes and hues. So, having too many choices at once can be overwhelming for a homeowner that wants to paint his/her home soon.
So, today, we’ll give you 7 tips on how to pick exterior paint colors. Following our tips, it’ll be easier for you to choose a color palette. We’ll explain to you our color scheme tips and the color rules that designers follow. In the end, you can be sure you’ll paint your house in a colorful, beautiful, and unique way.
7 Tips on How to Pick Exterior Paint Colors:
It may sound crazy. But if you are going to paint your house exterior, a good place to start is to look indoors to choose the right color.
I love to say that: “We are a reflection of what we have inside.” Well, you should apply that concept to help you choose the right color for your house exterior.
So, take some time to evaluate your indoors. And from the inside out, you can take an idea of which colors would be good for your house exterior.
In the end, what you want to achieve is to have a cohesive feel of the exterior with the colors in the interior of your house. This will help to keep the same tone. When you approach your home, you will see the vibrant, charming & vivid colors. And when you get indoors, you won’t feel the contrast. So, for instance, if you have pastel blue hues indoors, you can opt for a more solid blue color. Here we share this tool called Color Hex where you can take a look into popular color palettes.
Another good advice on how to pick exterior paint colors is to become a certified house color copycat. Sure, we know that you want your house to stand out of the neighborhood. But standing out too much can be just too much. So, what we advise you is to get ideas from your neighborhood, and if possible, you can try to blend in with the rest.
Of course, we aren’t saying that you need to look invisible around your neighbors. But you can blend in a little and stand out at the same time.
So, next time you are coming from your job, you can take some photos of houses with exterior color palettes that you like or pictures of homes that are similar to yours.
If you can’t take photos, just step outside to see the nearby houses. If there are many white and gray houses around yours, you can paint yours in a pink beige color. And from there, you can pick complementary colors to go with pink beige.
The two tips we gave you already work, but not in all cases. In fact, your home’s architecture style can also narrow down your exterior color choices.
Let’s say your house has entire sides faced in stone veneer or brick, or has large areas of unpainted concrete or steel. Then, your color choices will be automatically narrowed.
Why?
Well because these are natural or natural-looking materials. And therefore, they will dictate the color palettes you could choose from. Yet you must be careful to select a color that “plays well” with these materials.
So, you can do that by first determining the “undertones” of the unpainted, natural looking materials. Undertones can range from pink-beige to taupe. Whatever those undertones are, you need to know them so you can make sure your outdoor color scheme coordinates harmoniously. Otherwise, your newly-painted exterior will look like a messy hodgepodge of contrasting colors.
When you follow a trend, you are following the crowd. And let’s be honest: trends are a way to make people spend on something that probably will fall behind in a short time.
And since you’ll paint your house for the next 5 years, you’ll need to choose an exterior paint color that never goes out of style or never goes old, as we colloquially say.
You can choose a reddish tone to liven up your home and elevate its rustic or masonry elements. Also, you can opt for a tan hue. Your pick can oscillate between the hues of yellowish-brown colors. If you prefer something more youthful, you can go for a light yellow. Light yellow will spark energy all over your house and lighten up your house curb appeal.
Another excellent color to use is light gray. This color makes your house look stylish and newer, and makes you look savvier and more modern. What’s great about this color is that light gray matches perfectly with most materials and colors that make up your roof, railings, columns, and your landscape as well.
You can use a color wheel to help you pick the right shade.
According to Wikipedia, color psychology is the study of how hues, colors, and shades can influence human mood and behavior. And one of the most useful tools in color psychology is the color wheel. This wheel organizes colors in two main groups: cool and warm colors.
Warm colors include red, orange, and yellow. These colors tend to evoke emotions that can go from a burst of energy, vitality, warmth, and comfort to feelings of anger, hostility, and other strong emotions.
Cool colors include green, blue, and violet. These colors can stimulate our senses, evoking calming feelings. But if they are not complemented well with other colors, they can evoke sadness and indifference.
And here is where the color scheme concept makes its appearance. According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, a color scheme is a logical, harmonious, and complementary combination of colors from the color wheel.
Some of the color combinations you can use to paint your house facade are:
When painting your house facade, you need to factor in light. Light is a game changer when it comes to perceiving colors.
According to the American Museum of Natural History, light travels into the eye to the retina. The retina is covered with millions of light sensitive cells called rods and cones. When these cells detect light, they send signals to the brain. And cone cells are the ones that help us detect colors.
As much as we believe to understand how light affects our perceptions of color, there are many factors that we can’t account for when choosing exterior paint colors—especially when considering their effect on other people.
For example, if someone lives next door with lots of windows facing east or west, they’ll see different shades of your house depending on whether they’re at noon or midnight.
So, it’s important that any exterior paint job includes samples from multiple angles and hours during the day!
The best way to find out if a color works for you is by testing it out in different situations, both indoors and outside. What happens is that exterior paint colors will often appear several shades lighter when applied to your house outdoors.
So, what we recommend is to take a color swatch and pick your combination of colors, and then test it outside throughout the day as the sun shifts.
We hope that these tips have helped you out on how to pick exterior paint colors. If for some reason, you haven’t been able to narrow down your choices, don’t worry. We are here to help you. You can call us so that you get the support of our house color consultants.
Good luck choosing the right color combination so you can paint your house exterior in the most unique, charming, and vivid way!