Tips for Choosing Exterior Paint Colors for Your Home

The color of the exterior of your home is one of the first things that people see when they come to visit. When exterior paint colors are chosen well it can turn even an otherwise boring or plain home into something beautiful. However, if the wrong paint colors are chosen it can make even the most beautiful home look garish and overdone. Here are some things you should keep in mind when choosing exterior paint for your home.

When choosing exterior paint colors for your home there are a number of factors that you need to consider including the size of your home, the architecture of your home, any details like trim or shutters, the climate where you live, and more.

One of the very first things you should decide is whether you want to paint the home with light colors or dark colors. Typically light colors reflect light and help to keep a home cooler, while dark colors absorb light and can make the home hotter inside. This is something you might want to consider if you live in a warm climate. Light colors also generally will make a home look larger, which can be a bonus if you have a smaller home. It is possible to use both light and dark colors by using one for the main body of the house and the other for the trim and accents. In fact, having contrasting trim and accents often makes for the most pleasing exterior paint on a home since it can highlight architectural details and make your home look tidy and clean.

Once you have decided whether you would like to go light or dark with your exterior paint you need to choose the colors. Most people choose two colors – one for the body of the house and one for the trim. However, you can choose 3 or more colors as long as they are all coordinated and make sense. If you choose too many colors it can overwhelm your house and become distracting rather than enhancing your home the way it should.

In general it is a better idea to choose neutral colors for the exterior of a home rather than bright, vibrant colors. Have you ever driven by a house that has bright purple trim and wondered what the people were thinking when they painted it? You don’t want your house to be the house that everyone cringes at when they drive by, so keeping everything fairly neutral is a smart idea. Not only that, but neutral colors typically sell well so it will be easier to sell your home down the road. Now, neutral doesn’t necessarily mean boring beige. You can choose pretty much any color as long as it is toned down like soft greens, muted blues, warm peaches, etc. Just try not to choose colors that look like they could have come out of a box of crayons.

If you have a historic home you may want to look up what the traditional colors were for homes in that style. This is especially true with homes that have a lot of detail work like old Victorian homes. Painting in traditional colors can give the home more of a sense of history and can be truly beautiful.

One easy way to coordinate colors for the exterior of your home is to use colors that are all from the same paint chip. Colors on the paint chip are designed to work well together, so even if you have no sense of color yourself you can usually get beautiful combinations by sticking to a single paint chip for your color choices.