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!
Donita says
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!!!*
mp says
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.
Karen Dempsey says
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.
Karen says
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!
YoungHouseLove says
Ooh pear green and peacock blue sound equally lovely! Maybe do the test pot thing to choose? Then send pics!
xo,
s
melissa says
i vote for pear green! that sounds amazing!
Megan says
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!
YoungHouseLove says
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
Courtney says
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!!
Sarah says
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!
YoungHouseLove says
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
Mary says
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!
Bethany Peterson says
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!
KathyG says
Did I understand that you’ll only be painting the front? Not the whole house?
YoungHouseLove says
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
Giulia says
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.
hunter says
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).
Sara says
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!
Sarah says
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?
YoungHouseLove says
It’s solid wood (hardboard). Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Jordan@the2seasons says
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/
YoungHouseLove says
GORGEOUS! Your house is so charming to begin with- and I love the color you picked!
xo,
s
Kelly says
I really like the style of the house for the model that you picked out. Do you mind sharing where you found it? Thanks!
YoungHouseLove says
There’s a link at the bottom of the post for ya. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Eve says
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.
Amy says
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.
linda says
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.
YoungHouseLove says
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
linda says
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.
Olivia says
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!
Jenb says
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”.
Sarah W. in Oregon says
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.
Jo @ Let's Face the Music says
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
YoungHouseLove says
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
Katherine says
I know you’ve probably explained this before in other posts but I’m wondering: Why the inside-out clothing while painting?
YoungHouseLove says
Just so in case I get a drip it’s on the side of a shirt- so it’s not ruined!
xo,
s
Georgia Rowe says
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
Gaidig says
The right hand color was definitely the best pick. Looking forward to seeing it.
Also, I didn’t mention on the other post, but I like how your new mums repeat the yellow door color. Don’t they say to have color repeated in three places to make a more cohesive overall look?
YoungHouseLove says
Haha- I’ve never heard that but it makes sense!
xo,
s
Jess @ Little House. Big Heart. says
I was hoping you’d pick the one on the right! I will make your trim really pop and I love it with the happy yellow on your door!
But then again, I am probably obsessed with gray. Almost the entire interior of the Little House is gray or will be a gray of some sort and the exterior is a greige (sometimes it looks beige, sometimes gray) that pulls colors from the natural stone on the front. Just have to figure out what color to paint our front door…
erin says
Hey Young Lovers!
We’re about to tackle painting the outside of our house ( a nice mix of vinyl, wood, and god knows what else). Can you recommend a reliable, hopefully on the inexpensive side, exterior painter or company in Richmond?
YoungHouseLove says
So sorry- we have never hired that out so we don’t have any recommendations for ya! Is there anyone local who can give Erin a suggestion or two?
xo,
s
kaycee parker says
Love the gray. I just painted my house from an 80’s beach house pink to Olympic’s Sprig of Ivy. It’s a sage green, and i kept the trim bright white. I have bricks too, they’re in the same family and they compliment the green I chose.
Really wanted to do gray but my neighbor’s house is gray & we’re connected in the back by a storage shed. Meaning I can stand between our houses and touch each one at the same time :/ I also just painted my living room a gray color.. so it really wouldn’t of worked.
I’m glad you’re doing it though! Great choice & I was like you, not nervous to change the color. Usually dont get the nerves when it’s something I really want lol.
Still have to paint my pink door to a plum purple. Can’t wait to send you two the transformation pics. I’ve been working hard for 7 weeks! It’s been a mom & daughter flip :) Keeping my fingers crossed that I can get on your reader re-design. I’ve used a lot of tips and help from your blog, and you two have become a day to day reference through out this whole flip.
Jessica says
We painted our house this summer(also gray with a yellow door, navy for the shutters…). Most professionals use Benjamin Moore because they get a huge discount. We used the Valspar Duramax on our aluminum siding (the most difficult surface to paint). It is a paint/primer in one and it took one coat brushed on. Our exterior is about 2500 sq ft. We used 3.5 gallons of paint for the entire thing! We bought it on sale and the whole thing cost us $125. I swear I spent more on brushes. You can paint outside to 35 degrees. I must sound like a Valspar rep but I like paint a lot, and the quality of paint was AMAZING. Ok Lowe’s commercial over. :)
YoungHouseLove says
Wow- thanks for the tip! You’re the second person to recommend that!
xo,
s
melissa says
another hip-hip-hooray for Valspar here – I LOVE that paint!!
Karen says
I think that color will look great! We recently had to replace all of the siding on our home due to an addition we built. We chose a very similar gray, white trim and our front and side doors are bright yellow. W don’t have any brick (except for the chimney), but that gray looks very nice with the mortar.
Robin O says
I LOOOOOVE it!! For some reason I’m really excited about this particular project! Makes me want to paint our house a new fresh color! You guys are such an inspiration.
Kerri says
Love the gray! While you are painting, think about painting your porch ceiling light blue. I had never heard of this until a few months ago but apparently it’s a traditional Southern thing and I now think it’s fantastic!
YoungHouseLove says
Oh yes – we learned that a few years ago and would love to do it! We pained the ceiling of our old sunroom blue and loved it!
xo,
s
Amie says
Lovely! The grey really does blend in much better with the brick.
Also:
Just saw your gift guide in Emily Henderson’s Gift Guide! Great work, you two! You are really making it out there in the world, showing off your awesomeness. I will be taking a second gander at some of the toys you suggested for my niece, being born this month.
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks so much Amie! We were so flattered to be included!
xo,
s
Usha says
I just peeked at the EH gift guide too….which pages are you guys’ recommendations on? I couldnt seem to find it in my 2 minute flip-through.
YoungHouseLove says
Sorry- don’t know the page number off hand! We’re sort of 2/3rds of the way in I think? It’s a little piece about our favorite kid gifts. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Brittany says
Love the gray you picked out! Just thought I’d pass along some info for you if you’re deciding what kind of paint to use… We just sold our house in May and repainted the hardwood siding to add some curb appeal. We used Behr Paint+Primer from the Home Depot and it worked SO well. We were painting over cream with an olive green color and only had to do one coat. I was so happy with the result I almost didn’t want to move anymore. Almost : ) Hope this helps!
YoungHouseLove says
Wow- that’s amazing! Thanks for the tip!
xo,
s
Luisa says
Oh I thought for sure you would have plans to paint the brick. It would make your house stand out amongst other brick ranches plus coordinate well with your design esthetics. You might do a search and see how great it can look.
YoungHouseLove says
We just love that our brick is zero maintenance (painted brick in our area can be a pain because we get green mold which needs to be power-washed or bleach-scrubbed off). We would definitely paint it if it was ugly orange brick, but in person it’s a nice color (red with gray undertones) so we hope to work with it and keep the house as easy to maintain as possible!
xo,
s
Gabbi says
Oh boy, have we painted the exterior of our house! All of the awful befores and the lovely afters can be seen here…
http://retroranchrenovation.blogspot.com/2011/09/welcome-to-jungle.html
We tested quite a few different colors on our house before we found “the one”. We ended up using Valspar’s DuraMax Exterior paint. It gave us awesome results…we were very pleased!! Good luck! :)
YoungHouseLove says
Wow- that’s so much work!
xo,
s
Allison says
Sorry. I have to mention it. I totally noticed that you also added an extra light fixture and changed up the welcome mat in your photoshopped picture. Maybe that is why John is rolling his eyes? The project is just a little more than painting. Ha. I love a girl with some ambition!
YoungHouseLove says
Haha- he knows how I like to add more things to the to do list!
xo,
s
tina says
That’s the one I like too ! { not that my vote counts, lol}
[email protected] says
girl, you have one LONG to do list! it’s so inspiring! i’d love to paint my siding – okay, let’s be truthful here, i’d HIRE someone paint my siding, lol.
the grey and yellow are fantabulous together. that’s my new word.
heyruthie says
i just painted my front door a similar color and had a BAD experience with Behr Ultra Premium Plus (paint + primer in one.) bad coverage. chalky and blotchy finish. blech.
I’ve heard good things about Sherwin Williamson Duration exterior paint.
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks for the tip!
xo,
s
heyruthie says
P.S. it turns out that the worst parts of the paint job were when it was already getting cold–and I live in Fairfax, VA….so be careful! the paint doesn’t dry right when it’s cold….and we had snow this week already! i’ve decided to stop all my outdoor painting, after being so disappointed in last week’s paint job. I’m waiting until it warms up and the paint can dry properly!
YoungHouseLove says
Yeah- we’re going to strictly follow paint can temperature parameters. Might be a spring project if it gets too cold because we hate to gamble!
xo,
s
melissa says
We just painted our house in september (a week after we got back from our honeymoon!) It was nerve-wracking for sure, committing to a color for the whole house, and the color we ended up with is NOT what we thought we were buying, but – happily – we love it. It’s such a huge improvement. We went from dingy white with dark green trim (ew) to crisp khaki with bright white trim – it’s like a different house! :)
(still on the list – a new, more modern door, painted navy blue – can’t wait!)
Cara L. says
Love the color choice, you guys are so ambitious! Just noticed that your house currently has black shutters… will those stay as is, or do you have a new paint color awaiting for them? Also, did you considering painting over the brick at all in this process? Happy painting :)
YoungHouseLove says
Not sure if the shutters will end up a deeper charcoal or something. Maybe even a dark gray with a smidge of navy (we can paint the planters on the porch that color too). We’ll have to see where we end up! We’re leaning against painting the brick just because it’s a lot more maintenance in this area (unpainted brick = zero maintenance and painted brick can get green mold so it needs to be scrubbed and bleached and power-washed).
xo,
s
Raina@ Mamacita Spins The Globe says
It’s going to look great! Our house is a very similar grey (no brick). We have to paint because it’s been a while since it had a fresh coat of paint, and frankly it should have been done last year. We browsed other color options and ended up deciding to stick with the same color, we like it that much :) Though our red front door will be getting a color make over (still trying to decide, though I’m leaning toward black).
Melissa says
Love the choice. Our house is currently the dark grey in the middle with the same red brick and it’s too dark. Will vicariously live through you as you go with the lighter color!
Jaime Eng says
We just our siding done and picked a “slate gray” to go with our red door and brick lower half. I think the color combo works great! Definitely do the gray!
Meredith says
Ohh, I would love to do this! Can’t wait to see how it turns out! As for prepping the siding, what will do you to clean it? Power wash? Thanks!
YoungHouseLove says
Yup, we’ll either power-wash or scrub it down and then lightly sand it to rough it up and get the grime off before primer+paint.
xo,
s
Stephanie says
When my husband and I first bought our house it was a light cream color with what I call navajo green on the trim. Our first move was to paint the trim all black. We have since painted our house a mossy green color. We have replaced a few of our windows and they all have white trim now so we are in the process of painting over the black trim to white. Not fun! I love your color choices though. I say go for it! I’m trying to work up the nerve to paint the interior of my house a wheat color.
LeAnna says
we bought our house 5 years ago and the previous owners told us that they “just had it painted”. We are literally in the process of having our 1949 ranch painted b/c paint is coming off in chunks and bubbling all over the place. Just a word of advice, i would look into having a professional just come out and assess the previous paint job so you know what all needs to be done. Most people do the cheap thing and just slap a coat of paint on, but if you want it to last it should be done the RIGHT WAY THE FIRST TIME (grr..nothing like home ownership to find all the cheap ways people made easy fixes instead of doing the job so it lasts).We are having to strip all the old paint (no previous owners primed first or removed the old paint and there are mixed layers of oil-based on top of water-based paint, so no new paint will hold for long). We also have to re-grout b/w the boards (never been done in the life of the house, so says our painter), fix patches where paint was stripping off and water got behind it and there are some rotten spots). It is an EXPENSIVE and time consuming home repair, so BIG KUDOS to you for tackling it yourselves!! We are using a Benjamin Moore Paint, “ben Exterior” (mildew resistant, has excellent color retention, and comes with a 25-year warranty and is a low-VOC exterior paint. no, I don’t work for them, just found out lots of info during this process ;-). I’m not trying to be a bearer of gloom, I just know as first time home owners, we thought it would be an easy thing, and came to find out that there is a whole lot more involved (especially if you don’t know what/how the previous owners did things) and that there are important things to consider and take care of so that you hopefully don’t have to paint your house again for while! Best of luck!
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks so much LeAnna! We actually had a pro examine all the paint during inspection because we knew we wanted to repaint over it and wanted to be sure it wouldn’t flake or bubble. He did a series of tests to judge adhesion and materials and revealed that it was freshly painted with primer + paint after being sanded, so it was done exactly as he would have recommended. He said we should be able to prime+paint right over it, and could power-wash or lightly sand/scrub it by hand to rough it up for “extra credit” – so sorry to hear that your was bubbling and peeling!
xo,
s
Faith says
Ok, so gray is my favorite color but I am wholeheartedly unbiased when I say it looks awesome! I think the mid-tone gray is perfect for the house. And I love how crisp the white and yellow will look next to it.