Pop Quiz: Shingle Shades
Thinking about roofing isn’t my favorite thing in the world. Mostly because we’re in need of a new roof (but it’s not the cards right now) so thinking about it just kinda aggravates me. But one thing that I’ll put my frustration aside for is a free online decorating/personality quiz. Enter this Roofing Color Compass Personality Quiz, stage left.
I was a bit skeptical about spending my time to find out my “roofing color personality,” but the quiz is pretty well done as far as these things go. The questions are unique and the interface for answering them has nicely mixed things up from your usual check-the-box format. For example, you can drag a stamp that represents your favorite type of vacation into a passport…
…and sort a crayon box to indicate your favorite colors by order of preference…
In the end, I was told that my roof color personality was brown and gray (which, btw, I put in the middle of my crayon box- so the results weren’t that predetermined). They’re fairly traditional and safe as far as roof colors go, but I’d say that the description sounds enough like me to be considered moderately accurate. Hopefully people agree that I’m a “down to earth person with a subtle sense of humor.” And even though I’m not a wine drinker, I guess I could entertain the idea of installing the “Merlot” colored roof that they suggested.
Sherry’s results, on the other hand, had us laughing out loud. Not because purple and red are terribly inaccurate (although they were Sherry’s last two selected crayons) or because the description was particularly off base (she was described as highly creative and artistic- and she did get a bachelor of fine arts). But we have this running joke about purple and red being Sherry’s favorite pre-teen color combo because she often built outfits around these hues in grade school. Think purple leggings and a red bodysuit. Awesome, right? She doesn’t pair them so boldly anymore, but her closet does still feature a few deep purple tops (and she recently picked up a red bathing suit). As for the “Summer Harvest” roof suggestion, Sherry pleads the fifth (she dreams of a slate roof, a metal roof, or even a recycled tire roof, which looks surprisingly slate-like).
But enough about our results. We wanna know what you guys think. Was the quiz dead on? Completely and utterly wrong? Oh, and if you’re in the mood to explore other decorating quizzes of yore, you can find links galore right here.
PS: We were in no way paid or perk’d to mention this quiz- we just like free online entertainment (and talking about leggings and bodysuits apparently). But speaking of free, if you’re so excited by your results that you order a new roof, be sure to enter your before & after pics in the That’s My Roof contest for a chance at $500 or a full roof cost reimbursement. Not too shabby, eh?
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i just didn’t realize red and purple were OPTIONS. willy wonka house options just went through the roof!
I took the quiz and my results were sooo WRONG! The colors it gave me were also my last 2 in the rankings. Also, when I read the descriptions of people that like those colors, it couldn’t have less me if it tried. Makes me wonder about whoever made this quiz up!
Uh, yeah, not so much. It picked black and orange – two of my least favorite colors. It said, “The person who chooses black may have a number of conflicting attitudes.” Lol! That is so NOT me. And the roof choice was so-so. Oh well, you win some, you lose some – it was still fun to do!
I’ve taken similar quizzes before and I always feel like they get me mostly right, but I always have a hard time choosing colors from best to worst…too many choices and not enough shades!
Thanks for the link, definitely know my next procrastination website :)
If only there were one of these for ‘what color to paint my house’!!
Yikes…the last color in my crayon box (and the color I’m trying to get off the walls in my house) was the first color they tagged me with!
YELLOW!
Then again, I did have a yellow bedroom when I was a youngster…maybe our choices as children (I can only hope there’s a picture somewhere commemorating Sherry’s leggings and bodysuit combo) are more organic to who we are than the choices we make as adults after being swayed by sylists and trend-setters?! Or maybe the quiz is just full of it.
My 2 colors were orange and brown…which happen to be my least favorite colors. It picked the roofing called “storm cloud”, which is a far cry from the green roofing that we actually have!
I was just writing a post about this! Seriously, I just opened a new tab to see if there were any news posts in my reader and there you are beating me to the punch. Glad I saw this first before I posted it so it doesn’t come off looking like a copy cat. Great minds quiz alike, I guess! :) I thought my colors were off (yellow and brown are so not me!) but I liked the description that came with it.
We actually have roofers coming by our house tomorrow to give us estimates which is how we came by the website…they have a really fun virtual design program that lets you see their products on you house. So fun!
Black and Orange? What?! No thank you!
I think the quiz may automatically pick the two crayon colors you like least…which makes no sense to me whatsoever. If I don’t like it as a crayon why would I want it on my roof?
My colors: yellow and purple. Sorry folks, I’m not the Easter Bunny.
That said, amusing quiz.
That was great! We just replaced our roof, yesterday in fact. I picked out the roof couple weeks ago. I took the test today just for fun and WHAM!- it matches my roof exactly. Glad I trusted my intuition! Too fun!!
It gave me Gray and Black, the last two crayons I picked too! I wonder if that’s how they choose your roof colors? Fun quiz though, I liked having to think about some of the questions, especially where I wanted to go on vacation!
I got black and purple- completely off! I chose them as my least favorite colors. Weird.
This post is so fitting! We just got a new EcoStar Roof last week! We opted for gray. It looks just like real slate, but costs MUCH less! Very happy with it.
Diverting quiz, but I wouldn’t put much credence in it for selecting a roof. Seems to me that what your house looks like, and how much you want to spend, would be more useful criteria. Your brick rambler and my 3-storey Victorian probably wouldn’t look quite right with the same roof. And my bank account does not stretch to slate or copper.
It chose brown and orange for me… which were the last 2 colours on my list. It was 100% wrong about me! Not one thing it said was true.
Side Note: I was walking around my neighbourhood yesterday after work and say the cutest house with a bright blue roof, blue door and shutters. I actually pointed it out to my husband because I thought it looked amazing!!
I was taupe and purple. I kind of agreed with what they said the colors stood for, but I really don’t like those two colors. They were my least two favorite.
Yeah I got the last two colors I picked too. Black and Gray… I didn’t think the descriptions were very good at all.
Gotta tell ya – “summer harvest” looks a lot like the slate colors in our neck of the woods (Indianapolis).
I don’t know if those are the colors I would choose for a roof, but I felt the description of my personality was pretty spot on! I also thought it was a really fun quiz format! Thanks for sharing!
I’d echo what Pamela said. It’s a fun quiz, but I think it matters more what your house looks like than what you’d really like to have.
That said, I really love the Summer Harvest that Sherry got as a result, or the Sand Dune option I got (my colors were brown and gray and the personality matchup was actually pretty accurate). :)
It’s probably a fluke, since all the other comments seem to say the opposite, but I thought my results were pretty good. And I really liked the way the quiz was set up. My colors were beige and brown, not exactly colors I think of when I think “me” (but honestly, if they’d given me a green and blue roof–the first two colors in my crayon box–I’d be pretty horrified…), but I thought the roofing suggestion of “Sand Dune” was nice and I liked what they said in the “about me” section. Thanks for the link!
They picked my two least favorite colors! The first’s description was fairly accurate, but the second was absolutely not. What a fun quiz, though – so much better than simple multiple choice.
The quiz is fun but I got yellow (my least favorite color) and green which is o k a y. I guess it’s a good thing that our roof is nearly flat and I have no clue what color it is anyway. I think we have white rocks on our roof which is a SoCal thing that just don’t understand. Back home in New Orleans we had blue roof.
I got Gray and Black. They were my second to last color, and the middle color, so it definitely isn’t just choosing your last 2. It was definitely amusing to waste a couple of minutes taking the quiz. :o)
My results were right on. Taupe and beige. But while I typically use a lot of color in my house, the description was fairly accurate : Traditional, inviting, classic, warm, etc. etc. My favorite color is purple, hands down, but the descriptions of these two colors(and the roof chosen) was a pretty accurate descrption of my house and of me. I think I chose gray and black as my least favorite colors in the crayon section.
I love these quizzes :)
ugh, I hate paying for a new roof. Necessary, but that’s always money I’d rather spend on decorating! This is our 3rd house and we’ve had to put a roof on each house! And it was no picnic with a baby who napped (during one of the roof times) 2x a day!
Didn’t take the color quiz, but this latest roof is greyish. Nice and neutral. Our house is light grey (almost white) with black shutters. Also, check into architectural shingles. More expensive, but they last longer.
Not only did it give me my last 2 crayon colours (beige and blue), but the descriptions seemed really inaccurate – all about cool and serene, which is definitely not me. Very fun quiz, though!
Mine was waaaaaaay off. It gave me taupe and beige. Last two colors in my box. In reality, I love color and most of the rooms in my home are full of blues and greens, with a splash of purple or yellow. And the kitchen is orange!
Ahh well. I still enjoyed it!
Additionally, an important aspect in the color of your roof should also be where you live. Darker colors in the north retain heat better, and lighter colors in the south reflect light better, keeping the house cooler.
– http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/science/earth/30degrees.html?_r=2
– http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Homes/Cool-Roof-White-Roof.aspx
My house got a new roof a year before I bought it (thanks Hurricane Gustav!) and it’s a light brown. But the next time it needs replacing, I’ll think hard about going with a much lighter shade, even tin (which is actually a traditional choice in Louisiana).
We just had a new roof put on last week! Nice that they have this quiz now, but isn’t it most important that the roof color goes with the house?! (Gosh, it was so hard to decide!)
We went with Summer Harvest, which actually looks like a textured gray/brown once it is up there. J&S, I emailed you the pictures when we “tried on” colors with the visualizer, and thank you for your advice! I’ll email you an after picture as soon as the dumpster is out of our driveway! :)
i got taupe and beige and the descriptions were pretty much right on!
It gave me two of my least favorite colors as well – yellow and taupe. The roof color suggestion was ok (Sand Dune), but not what I would pick. We had our roof redone last year and I wanted a DARK color. We got a really dark grey, almost black.
My “perfect color” determination was also the last two crayons I chose! Too funny. I did like what it said about me and my house though and I even surprisingly liked the multi-tonal roof look. It chose Sand Dune and Summer Harvest for me. Thanks for sharing.
This is awesome timing! I’ve been paralyzed by what color to repaint our ranch-style house because the purply-reddish-brown shingled roof dominates…and makes my dream for a blue door impossible (I think).
If I could win a design board from you, it would be on an exterior update to our poor 1970s house. Ack. I can’t take the cream-paint-with-faded-greenish-trim-and-MAUVE-front-door-with-ugly-melted-crayon-mess-roof anymore!
I know this post was just for fun but it made me think of something I heard a while back about energy efficient roofing – Light-colored rooftops could actually curb carbon emissions.
You can read about it here:
http://energy.gov/news/9225.htm
and here:
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2010/07/19/cool-roofs-offset-carbon-dioxide-emissions/
But its a cool thing to think about before making such a big decision.
Thanks YHL!
Thanks for the tips Lucia! Off to check them out!
xo,
s
Very interesting. We are in the market for a new roof, so although the quiz might not have been that accurate, I’m going to check out other aspects of the website, too. I think the style of house and siding color should definitely be IMPORTANT factors.
What a fun quiz! And surprisingly accurate. Although brown and purple are not my favorite colors, what they said about my personality kind of fit. Eery. Going to have my husband try it and see if it matches him.
And to piggyback on Lucia’s comment if you check the USBGC website and LEED guidelines it’ll tell you which solar reflective rating is the best so you can take that into account when looking at roofing materials…
I got Merlot like you John… but my colors were the same as you Sherry (and also the last two I picked). The description was totally off!
Blasphemy! My results were ORANGE and TAUPE! Which is really funny because my childhood home was bright orange with blue trim. (Parents really loved the Denver Broncos.) Our roof, as luck would have it, was the only Orange one around. Funny!
I’m sorry you guys are needing a new roof. Those are never fun, we’re looking at the same prospect for our home in the next couple of years. Thankfully, we can just add to and not take off!
My quiz gave me beige and taupe as my roof colors. YUCK! Those are the two colors I put last in my crayon box. It says I like classic looks and I’m careful about letting too much excitement in my life. I think that last part might be a little bit true, but I would need something a bit more exciting than beige and taupe on my roof!
Um, wouldn’t you just look at the shingle options that looked good with your house, and pick one of those (in my case, the most energy-efficient one)? This quiz is stupid. PLus the questions take forever to load. Thumbs down!
John, I was so excited to see that you got the dremel trio! Happy late Father’s Day.
We’re starting to look into sanding and refinishing our window sills, and I thought maybe we should get an orbital sander to help us out. Would you recommend the trio for something like that?
Hi Addie,
It’s hard to say since I haven’t used the Dremel’s sanding function yet. It was very easy to use for the routing and cutting, so I imagine that the sanding is similarly enjoyable. The only potential issue I could see is that it it’s a fairly small and precise tool, so if you’ve got a lot of ground to cover you might want to look at a slightly larger orbital sander to get the job done. Hope that helps!
-John
Yellow and purple huh! Too funny these were the last in my crayon box : ) Oh well it was fun anyway.
Hey!
The hubs and I just had to get a new roof unfortunately, but we are so glad we finally did it. The contractor highly recommended a shingle company called GAF. They offer the new architectural shingle style which comes in such a variety of colors! We chose a color called weatheredwood! Lots of yellow pigment that complimented our house so well! GAF also now offers the new Timberline cool series. Energy efficient shingles that qualify you for a $1500 government tax credit! It was worth every penny down here in the hot Florida sun. If you choose to go with the regular shingle series, they are priced extremely reasonable through local contractors that offer it. :)
Check’em out!
http://www.gaf.com/Roofing/Residential-Roofing/green-roofing/green-roofing-residential-homes.asp
- Erica Rex
Thanks for the tip Erica! We’ll have to check them out.
xo,
s
I’ve heard of the exact same thing Lucia is talking about: darker color roofs help contribute to global warming. Eco-conscious folks choose a lighter colors to keep things cool. Really eco-conscious folks choose a green roof – by that I mean a roof with dirt and plants on it. My sis and brother in law have a green roof, and it’s awesome. Every so often, they get out the ladder to go weed the roof. How fun is that?
Hey Jo,
We had dreams of a green roof and actually looked into it but learned that to support all the weight of dirt and water and plants we would have to basically rebuild our house from the ground up- so sad! We would love to have one (and walking around weeding it up there would be super fun).
xo,
s
This was the most fun of any quiz I’ve taken! My results were yellow and orange. I didn’t think that it would be an accurate description of me, but it was actually quite close. My husband and I are also in need of a new roof, but can’t manage it right now. Thanks for sharing.
You mentioned that you get aggravated thinking about a new roof (since you need one but it isn’t in the cards right now). We just moved into a new-to-us older home where everywhere we turn we see a home improvement project waiting to be done.
When you have multiple home improvement projects on your horizon, how do you choose what do to when? And how do you deal with the less-than-ideal in the meantime?
Thanks!
Hey Colleen,
We like to save up for each investment in our house, and we have a little list that’s ordered by priority so we don’t get ahead of ourselves. For example, we knew it would be hard to gut and renovate the bathroom (not to mention unhealthy) with a newborn around, so we saved up for and completed that project even before we did her nursery (which we also saved up for and deal-hunted so as not to go over budget). As for the roof, it still hopefully has a year or two left (according to our home inspection four years back (he guessed it had about 6 years left back then) so although it looks incredibly worse for wear, it still functions and doesn’t leak yet. Even though it looks as though it might any moment. Ha. So we are actively saving for a new roof, but we’re hoping we have a while to let that money build up in our savings account while we tackle other less expensive projects that we’d like to get to sooner. Of course nothing about home improvement is very predictable so of course our priorities could shift if the roof sprung a leak or something! Hope it helps.
xo,
s
My “favorite” color roof is one that doesn’t leak, and meets our neighborhood’s annoying color requirements. We can’t even do architectural shingles – which, actually, is a cost savings.
We’re in the same boat as you all – we’ve patched once, but we do need a new roof. Also not in the cards right now.