Picking A New Siding Color By Painting Some Test Swatches
Duuude. We painted our house. Clarification: we painted a few tiny test swatches. The creamy color wasn’t exactly hurting our eyes, but there are a few gorgeous homes in our neighborhood with gray hardboard siding + brick and we love the look, so we decided to give a few swatches a try. Having such a light creamy color on the hardboard siding (it’s solid wood) and all of the trim isn’t doing the trim any favors (it’s not popping at all since it’s all the same color). And the pairing of the light cream with the darker richer brick is sort of jarring – like it’s two houses. So we thought by going with a more mid-toned color (but not reddy-brown since that would be too much of a good brick thing) it might feel more cohesive. Like one unified house instead of a brick house with a big cream box in the middle.
First we held up around 25 swatches and picked three that we thought looked the best next to the brick (which has some pretty great gray undertones – especially in the mortar). Then we got three two dolla (holla!) paint pots from Lowe’s and made three test squares (right above the brick part of the house so we can see how things look when they touch). Note: why yes I did wear my shirt inside out when painting them, thankyouverymuch.
The winner?
The guy on the right. You can see from the photo above that it’s a warm taupey gray. So it shares a lot of undertones with the brick. We feel especially confident about how compatible it’ll be since it’s nearly the same color as the mortar.
It’s Flagstone by Martha Stewart, which we’ll get color matched to some sort of high quality exterior paint – hopefully with some built-in primer (more deets on that when we actually pick up the paint and pin down what brand/type it’ll be). As for the one in the middle, that’s Mushroom by Martha (which we thought was too dark), and the one on the left is Bedford Gray also by Martha (which we thought was too icy and blue).
Of course the photos aren’t the same as the real life effect, but we love the guy on the right because it’s not too icy/cool/light and it’s not too dark. Don’t get us wrong – we love a dark house (with white trim that pops = amazing) but we thought a mid-tone would look best with our black roof, existing brick, yellow door, and the bright white trim that we’ll be adding (black roof + dark gray house = too dark for our little ranch). So we hope our pick is a nice balance of not-too-dark-and-not-too-light (the roof can be the dark element and the white trim can be the light one). Here’s a poorly photoshopped version of the last pic to give you an idea of where we’re hopefully headed:
Speaking of the to-be-white trim, it’s actually really out of order of us to test paint on the house because we still need to demo out the scallops on the porch and paint the trim (painting the hardboard and then demoing the scallops could lead to some paint damage that we’d then have to retouch). So although we’ve pinned down our paint winner, we hope to move on to scallop-demo and then we’ll get to painting the hardboard gray and the trim white (along with framing out the curvy columns to make them look chunky and square like our future scallop-less header).
Hope we can tackle that before it gets too cold for exterior painting (especially since we’re also juggling the kitchen redo). Oh man, but can’t you just picture our happy yellow door with white trim and gray hardboard with that gray-undertoned brick? Hope it’s as lovely in real life as it is in my mind. If not… guess I’ll be repainting (we have gallons of the current colored house paint in the basement).
In the meantime, have you guys painted the trim or the siding of your house? Did you do the whole paint-a-few-test-swatches thing beforehand? Were you nervous? It’s amazing how not nervous I am. Usually I’m indecisive and happy to wait a while while thinking things over, but this time I’m all over it. Seriously, can’t wait. So here’s hoping the colder weather + the kitchen don’t make this a spring project. Come on fall, hold out for a while longer!
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Love the color choice. That was my choice, before scrolling down. Your house it going to look awesome!!! The gray looks amazing with the brick, roof and yellow door. *MMM that yellow door, LOVE!!!*
I painted my white aluminum siding to match the gray that was on the other walls, and it looks great. Mine is a darker gray, more like the color on the right.
Love it. Love the taupey grey – it’s such a warm complement to the brick and the kind of color you’ll never tire of. It’ll provide a great backdrop to all your little porch and patio/seasonal tweaks.
Love it!
My house has brick very similar to the rendering you posted. I just painted my hardyboard trim the very same gray that you chose! I have white trim and black shutters. I love the combination of it all.
Now I’m waffling on a color for the front door. Can’t decide between a peacock blue/teal or a pear green. I need to make a choice before it gets too cold to paint!
Ooh pear green and peacock blue sound equally lovely! Maybe do the test pot thing to choose? Then send pics!
xo,
s
i vote for pear green! that sounds amazing!
I’ve used MS Flagstone, Mushroom and Bedford Gray in my home. Think I like it much? But I wonder if they gave you the wrong color for Bedford Gray because on my walls, it’s got a lot of brown in it giving it warmth not icy or blue. It’s my alltime favorite gray and I get compliments on it. Also, my friend just repainted all her hardiboard on her red brick house Bedford and Flagstone. How ’bout them apples!
So funny! I think it’s just a color that changes a lot depending where you see it! Someone commented that it was really green for them and it was really blue for us! Weird, huh?
xo,
s
I had the exterior of my house repainted this summer. It used to be a frumpy brown that delivery people completely missed and drove past, and I must have gone through eight different tester pots before setting on what I THOUGHT was the right color. It still turned out much brighter than I expected – a light turquoise instead of the green-gray I was hoping for – but anything is an improvement! I also had the trim painted a crisp white. I don’t know what the previous owners were thinking when they had the trim painted brown to match the house!!
Aww I like the darker tone a lot but I think the lighter one will look nice too. I’m just wondering if you’re consciously doing grellow/gray/white in every room or if it’s just working out that way? I miss the daring-ness of the peacock blue guest room!
We just wanted to choose the color that complemented the brick best- and it happened to be a midtone gray (the yellow door and the red tones in the brick are enough color for us – so we didn’t want a big crazy house with colorful siding and a colorful door and colorful brick). We figure plantings and porch accessories (pillows on the bench, planters, and flowers) can also add color as we go! We did recently paint our office chairs green and upholster them with bold teal fabric along with hanging really bright all-colors-of-the-rainbow art in there! So we don’t think we’re just sticking to gray, grellow, and white (we have a pink nursery, a blue bedroom, peacock dining room curtains and deep teal built-ins, the peacock blue guest room you mentioned, the big green rug in the living room, etc). So there’s lots of color inside. Still have a long way to go though – so I imagine we’ll continue to mix neutral and classic colors with more daring counterparts for the next few years (our first house took 4.5 years to be “done” – so everything is still in progress).
xo,
s
I love the color you’ve picked!
I’m a big Martha fan for her colors; they really are on target for my taste. All of the colors are coded by symbol to help guide those of us who are a bit challenged that way:) In my purse I carry around 6 big Martha swatches that represent the paint colors that I’ve used and the colors that I look for in fabrics and other needed accessories.
And I take comfort in the way that you work. I work on one project for a while, stop, then work on another project while I’m thinking about the first project. Then every now and again, I have to make a punch list to finish up the odds and ends on the mostly completed projects. Works for me!
We painted our last house a greenish-grey. We painted test swatches all over the house and garage to see what the colors looked like in different lights. We had the test swatches up for quite a while (I was having commitment issues) and it was funny how many of our neighbors would comment on the swatches. It seemed they were just as excited to see which one we picked! We painted ours in early/late fall too, and the weather held out for us, so good luck! It was a ton of work though!
Did I understand that you’ll only be painting the front? Not the whole house?
We’ll do it in stages. So we could only tackle the front before winter, but hopefully could do the back in the spring. You can’t see the back from the street and the sides are brick so no one will be the wiser but us!
xo,
s
We painted our siding this spring because we didn’t like the previous owners choice. It made such a big difference – now every time I drive up to our house I’m no longer annoyed. At the same time I also painted the trim around our front door and garage dark like our mortar and once new windows with dark frames go in it will be awesome.
http://www.fishlynews.com/2011/06/lick-of-paint.html
BTW: I am debating on painting my kitchen cabinets Bedford or Flagstone – funny you chose both those colours.
We got our house painted this September. It was…well…it was a giant pain.
But, our house is 91 years old with the original siding and all the original windows, and two stories tall plus an attic, so it was a pretty big project.
We went with a lovely light gray with dark green trim. It’s lovely now that it’s done, but it was a very noisy, very expensive two weeks while it was being done.
Hopefully yours is much smoother (and much quieter).
I’m going through the same tests with gray paints. I have 4 or 5 different gray swatchs in my living room currently! I really like the one you are going to use. I keep running into the problem of the grays I like at the store are way too blue once I paint a small section of the wall. Good luck with the project!
Oh that color looks amazing! I think you for sure picked the right one of those three choices. It’s going to look fantastic! :) What kind of siding do you have on your house?
It’s solid wood (hardboard). Hope it helps!
xo,
s
I am so impressed only 3 samples on your house. Our house got a facelift and we started with 6 samples and had to go back for more. Hope you can take a look we went with a gray and LOVE IT. We used the Behr with primer in one and it was excellent. http://the2seasons.com/2011/08/23/a-little-mascara-and-some-lipstick/
GORGEOUS! Your house is so charming to begin with- and I love the color you picked!
xo,
s
I really like the style of the house for the model that you picked out. Do you mind sharing where you found it? Thanks!
There’s a link at the bottom of the post for ya. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Very nice! I’m envious you’ll get to it before the winter. ;) We’ve got a whooooole aluminum siding exterior to paint up here in upstate NY, but unfortunately we missed the weather window due to hurricanes and other rain and now too-chilly weather. Boo. But we’ve got the paint ready to go for the spring! Wild Hawk house (olive taupe), almond cream shutters and a greenish teal for the doors, all to coordinate with the orange/rust toned roof shingles.
Love the color choice. We just painted our house. We went with sagebrush green to get a way from all the grey on our street. We are now the brightest and cutest in the neighborhood.
On a side note, I love the stenciling in the office. I have been contemplating a stencil of my own and watching your progress has given me the courage to go for it.
I really like the grey – just wondering, are you considering Benjamin Moore or Sherwin Williams for your exterior paint? I’m on a condo board up here in IL – when we were scoping our proposals for our exterior painting, 99% of the pro’s recommended either BM or SW (we went with BM – I love it myself for interior work, and feel it’s worth the extra moola). Of course, the weather in Illinois is, ah, somewhat harsher – maybe other brands will work as well in a gentler climate.
We’ve heard amazing things about Benjamin Moore’s Aura paint (which many painters apparently prefer) so we might try that for added durability!
xo
s
I used Aura for one of my bathrooms – I will never use any other paint going forward! Very forgiving for a novice painter, wonderful coverage, and very low smell (I was worried about my kitties and was painting last Thanksgiving). And, I love the BM colors as well.
Our house is plain white. I have wanted to paint it gray for a while now, but it’s vinyl and from what I’ve read that’s really tricky. Maybe someday I’ll build up the courage to do it :) Glad you guys have siding thats easy to work with!
We painted our house this summer. I pretty much had in my head exactly what I wanted. I had to paint the samples for my husband, to get him on board. We went with a grey/brown color. The big argument that we had was that I wanted a dark grey, almost black, trim. He wanted to go with bright white. With our style of house and the roof and gutter and windows I thought the white would clash. He wouldn’t give in. I finally told him that we would paint it all the dark grey and if when the house was done he still hated it, I would personally repaint all the trim white. But… He loved the dark color and actually said “you were right”.
We re-sided (and painted) last fall. I had a rotation of 4’x4′ samples on our house for about three weeks before I made a decision – It was nerve wracking! I’m very happy with our choice.
Our neighbors recently painted their home a taupey-gray from small samples like yours… I would be cautious of a color that might turn lavender. They didn’t realize the lavender-ness of their taupe until it was all over their house. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the look they were going for.
I was right with you on the MS “Flagstone” until I saw the long shot. I’d go for the dark middle color, “Mushroom”. It would really make the yellow door POP! The fact that this area of your house is a totally different color really highlights the entrance which I always think is a good thing. (Hate when I can’t figure out which door to knock on.) In the long run, either color is great. Jo @ Let’s Face the Music
The reason we didn’t like the darker one as much in person is because it appeared to be the same color as the roof. So we thought to keep things dimensional that we’d rather have the roof look a shade or two darker. But it’s definitely one of those personal preference things!
xo,
s
I know you’ve probably explained this before in other posts but I’m wondering: Why the inside-out clothing while painting?
Just so in case I get a drip it’s on the side of a shirt- so it’s not ruined!
xo,
s
I have to say out of the 3, the one on the left’s my fav!
im sure it will look really nice once its done, but dont take on too much in one go you’ll exhaust yourselfs!
xx