Expert: Nazim Nice - 9/14/2011

Question
Hi. We are preparing to paint our home and are baffled by color. We have a raised ranch, in a woodsy setting, with an addition (seen at upper left in the photo). Right now, the house is so dark in its setting that it's almost hard to see it from the road.

We know we want to lighten up the exterior considerably. We're putting in a new front door with sidelights and a transom light. But we have no idea what colors to paint the shingles, the lower level/brick (we'd like to paint over the brick), and the addition. We'd like to go with a stain for the shingles and addition, and I think that the shingles and the addition should be the same color. In addition, we're replacing the two smaller garage doors with new white garage doors.

How much contrast should there be between the top level and the bottom level? Should there be a lighter color on top, or a lighter color on bottom, or should it all be the same?

Thank you!

Answer
Hi Anne,

When there are a lot of different materials, it often makes sense to paint them all the same color or close to the same color. That tends to unify things. So one option might be to take a color like coffee (think coffee with milk) and use a few tones around that color. You might look at painting the addition and the upper floor shingles a lighter color than the base (board and batten siding and the brick), but then use that same lighter color on the garage doors instead of white (which I feel will be too much contrast and start looking colonial). The shutters should probably go darker than the base just so it doesn't look too basic. If you do choose to stick with the white garage doors, then the shutters could be white instead. The brick would be painted the same color as the siding adjacent to it. Right now the brick splits the house up with too many horizontal lines. This same concept could be applied to any color if you want to lean toward green or another color, but just remember it should go with your roof color, which looks brownish to me. So stick with warmer colors to unify things.

Hope this helps!

Nazim Nice
Principal / Architect
http://www.motion-space.com
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