Outdoor Palette

Today I’m joining a few other bloggers over at Remodelaholic, chatting about how all our kitchen cabinets have held up after painting them several months ago. Be sure to check out the reviews if you’re thinking of painting your own cabinets.

But before you head over to see them, I want to share with you a little color theory, and how it can help you pick colors for your home. We have been trying to get motivated to paint the exterior of our house for about 10 years now, ever since we moved in. Let’s just say that the home’s exterior is not what attracted us. But I’m a firm believer that a coat (or two or three) of paint can fix almost anything, so one of these days we’re actually going to get around to it. I’m sure our neighbors will be thankful. It’s not terrible, it’s just a dingy shade of off-white, and could really use a bit of color and personality.

This palette is based on natural colors, and it looks a bit weathered and neutral. You can’t go wrong with choosing nature-inspired colors for the outside of your house.

Photo credit: bulbocode909 / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

The trick with choosing colors for your home’s exterior is: less is more. With any paint color, the color that you admire on the paint store’s 1-inch swatch will look a lot more intense when you paint it on a larger area. It’s always a challenge for my clients to visualize what the color on the swatch will actually look like once it’s on a wall. That reality is magnified even more when you’re painting something really large, like the side of a house. What you really want is the color that you like, but slightly toned down. Add a little gray or brown to neutralize the color. Trust me, your eyes and your neighbors will thank you.

That’s the quick tip of the day! For now, I’ll leave you with this wonderful infographic that Senator Windows recently shared with me. It does a great job walking you through those important exterior paint decisions. Be sure to pin it for future reference…