Young House Love

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How To Pick A New Siding Color

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.

Painting Swatch1

The winner?

Three Swatches

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.

Three Swatches Far

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:

Photoshopped Front Door2

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!

Comments

  1. Kristen says

    I LOVE the color combo! Grey and brick have always been a favorite of mine– so classic, yet the yellow gives it a pop of fun!

    How did you do the photoshop rendering? I’ve been trying to do that for my house– I add a layer with the color and change the layer opacity, but it doesn’t work as well as yours. Any tips for a novice photoshopper?

    Reply

  3. Rachel says

    We’re currently in the process of painting the exterior of our house too. It took a couple weeks and multiple trips to Lowe’s to get sample paint to land on THE color for the house (the trim was supereasy to nail down for some reason). We’re hoping (fingers crossed) to get it all done before winter. And I would DEFINITELY recommend the primer + paint combo. You need two coats, tops, for great coverage. It’s so worth the extra money and time saved. The gray mockup y’all have done looks gorgeous. Makes your happy yellow door pop even more. :)

    Reply

  5. Melanie says

    I don’t know if you’ve mentioned it before, but where is your porch light from? It looks really nice although it’s hard to see the details of it in the picture. I imagine it’s something that you intend to keep since you’ve photoshopped a second one in ;-)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      That was actually there when we moved, but we’ve seen similar ones at Lowe’s and Home Depot (and have some extras around the back of our house and upper patio that we can steal from to get a perfect match- and then just replace that one – haha).

      xo,
      s

  6. Holly West says

    We painted our house this past summer. When we bought it in February 2011 it was a bright, easter egg blue color. I didn’t hate it, but the trim badly needed painting and when my husband said we could paint the entire house I was more than happy to see it go.

    To test the colors, we painted a square foot paint sample and a couple of two by fours and held them against the house. When we were very close to settling on the final colors, we did a whole window/wall combo test, then ordered the paint.

    Craftsman houses aren’t meant to stand out like sore thumbs–they’re meant to complement their surroundings, even blend in a little. So I chose an grayish-olive color called “calico rock,” the trim is the ubiquitous “swiss coffee,” and the accent is called something like “true gold,” which thankfully isn’t gold at all.

    http://www.hollywest.com/craftydevil/2011/11/painting-the-house-before-after.html

    Please excuse the dying plants/grass in the front. They’ve since been revived.

    Reply

  7. heather says

    That’s going to look *great*. I love it. From what I’ve read on the blog, it is so your style and wonderful. Oddly enough it immediately reminded me of this bedroom I have pinned. It’s too contemporary for me, but I still love it.

    http://pinterest.com/pin/206327764/

    Also, in lieu of the Pinterest Challenge I posted a double whammy and threw up another DIY project this morning that I had been meaning to put up for about 3 weeks now!

    http://www.likeacupoftea.com/diy-state-sillouette-vector-art

    Reply

  8. Michelle says

    We just finished painting the whole exterior of our house–all by ourselves! It was an epic project. Check out some pictures:
    http://theprojectdiary.blogspot.com/2011/09/house-painting-part-2.html

    I just love your color choice. The color we picked for our house also blended very well with the color of the mortar in between the stonework on our front porch. I think it really helps tie everything together. For the wood siding on our porch, we used Behr exterior flat paint. Just wondering, why were you thinking of using one with primer? Since its painted already, you wouldn’t really need primer.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Wow- that must have been a huge job! We just thought something with primer would add up to better adhesion (even when we repaint painted furniture or paneling we try to use primer when we can since paint over paint can “slip” (not grab as well) as a new layer of primer to bond stuff!

      xo,
      s

  9. lizziebeth says

    I love your choice. I’m trying to decide on what to paint my house. I don’t care for the house, as it’s not a traditional house and I’m a traditional person and that is the first problem. But, I so want to better it. It currently has white brick and wood siding AND cedar accents. The wood siding is painted a baby poo goldy brown and the cedar trim is chocolate brown. It’s pretty awful and so many materials confuse me too. I’d love to pay you to help me create a couple of virtual ideas. Is this possible. Please shoot me an email one way or the other. Thanks.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      So sorry, we don’t have time to take on clients these days with the baby, our book, our columns, and the blog! If only there were more hours in the day!

      xo,
      s

  10. blake says

    Like the grey. Also really like how you are using Photoshop to give us an idea of what projects may look like.
    I just finished painting my shutters from brown to Adirondack green (siding is yellow). Amazing what a difference color can make!
    http://bit.ly/sr4yK3

    Reply

  11. mribaro says

    I really love the look of the rendering, because the red of the brick and the “grey” are so similar. Actually, they are much closer to each other than your combination. The “grey” in the rendering is much redder, more like taupe, and the brick in the rendering is not so vivid red like yours, it’s a bit more demured and orangey-grey. I hope the end result is the one you’ll like. Perhaps you still have time to do a test with another tone or two. I’d try something that is half way in between the grey you like and the color of your brick. Although warmer, it still might look pretty grey standing next to your very red brick.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      In person we like the pairing a lot (the mortar is almost the exact same color gray and many of the bricks have gray tones in them) – it’s just hard to get across in pics of course!

      xo,
      s

  12. Sam @ The Junk House says

    I’ve been talking about painting the exterior of my house since I moved in! Right now it’s brick, a gross off-white, and brown trim…blah! I’m thinking brick, a brighter white and gray trim with a navy front door. I need to read my HOA rules before I start painting…I don’t want to get (another) “friendly reminder”!

    Reply

  13. alex says

    I think it’s hilarious that everytime Clara wakes up her crafty parents have changed the house in some way. Haha. She’s gonna start not sleeping so she won’t miss out on the action.

    Also, im in love with the idea of painting the house…the cream was lovely but very traditional and you guys are just giving it that Petersik flip. And, I think everything will go awesome even with a thousand projects and a toddler because you guys know how to pace yourselves.

    Reply

  14. Beth says

    Omigosh I’m SO excited you’re going to attempt to tackle your porch soon. Ours is nearly identical and in serious need of an upgrade. But after seeing you tackle projects similar to mine AFTER I do (and always better and cheaper), I vowed to wait until you worked on your porch to work on my own. You seriously just made my day :-)

    Reply

  15. Lara says

    Thank you so much for this post, you have no idea how inspiring it is to me-and I’m not talking about paint color. My husband and I are thinking about building a house and I sent him the pics and specs of your inspiration photo and he really likes it! The design of the house meets all of our criteria and if we both like it, that must mean it’s meant to be since we often have very different opinions :-) Thank you so much!

    Reply

  16. Misty says

    When we bought our house two years ago every wall was gray. There is not a touch of gray left inside the house now. As I watch you weave touches of gray into your home I can’t help but wonder if I might have jumped too fast when I covered up every gray wall in the house (maybe I could have left some of them?).

    Right now I am dreaming about painting the outside of my house. Guess what color it is? Gray with white trim and brick…just like what you want. I’m staying strong (it’s hard) and not following your example (but you have such great taste). I just don’t think the gray works for us, especially since we just stained all of the wood (deck and front porch) a rich chocolate brown.

    You are making me question all of my choices! I am staying strong and sticking to my gut. I like chocolate brown, I like chocolate brown, I like chocolate brown… I must keep reminding myself that while gray works for you, that doesn’t mean it’s meant for me.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Yes! So true! We’re on a gray kick but we were on a neutral kick five years ago (tans and creams) and will likely be on some other kick in another 5 years or so! It sounds like your chocolate brown wood might pair a lot more nicely with something that’s not brown! So definitely follow your gut!

      xo,
      s

    • Misty says

      We LOVE the chocolate brown with the brick, but the gray is just not doing it for us. Now to figure out what color will tie it all together!

  17. Misty says

    I’ll be honest at first I was saying “No no no! Don’t do it!” Even after I saw the swatches I wasn’t so sure. Then I scrolled down to the photoshop picture and out loud went “Oooooh! I LOVE IT!!!”
    Now, I’m super excited to see it all finished! It’s going to be beautiful!

    Reply

  18. Erinn says

    I love these kind of posts where I try to decide which one you will choose. It’s like a game I play to see what option you choose – great choice on the grey that will really look nice.

    Reply

  21. Hannah says

    When I scrolled past the rendering, I was sure you were about to announce that it was the plan for your eventual garage addition! That would be so exciting!

    Reply

  22. Stephanie says

    Ooh, I love it!!! I actually would love to do this color scheme on my house, which is currently brick with cedar shakes. At first I thought I might want to go with new siding, but my husband likes the cedar shakes, so who knows, maybe I can convince him that we should paint them gray and we can have the best of both worlds. :-)

    Reply

  24. Carolyn says

    Ever since you guys painted the door yellow I was hoping you’d paint the white siding gray. Looking good YHL!

    Reply

  25. Mandy says

    Can you colour-match Martha Stewart paint? My sister tried recently and was told that she (Martha) apparently holds the trademarks (or something) on her colours, so HD wasn’t able to match them.

    Maybe it’s just a Canada/Home Depot thing? Just curious :)

    Reply

  26. Corrie says

    I have a partially brick house with mustard yellow siding, and as I have discussed the painting plan I keep mentioning going gray to match the mortar. Everyone I say this to thinks I am crazy, so I now plan on referring them all to this post. Thanks!

    Reply

  28. Wendy says

    When we painted our house a few years back, I too wasn’t nervous at all. I was 100% sure I wanted a taupey gray color as well, and once I decided on Sherwin Wiliams’ Anonymous (house color) and Pearly white (trim), I made absolutely sure with a few test patches on the house. I still LOVE the color, and one benefit I hadn’t planned on was that the house color disguises dirt beautifully!
    http://www.oldtownhome.com/content/Our-Home/

    Can’t wait to see the finished result, and I’m sure it will look amazing with the yellow front door.

    Reply

  29. Marla says

    yay! I was waiting for this to happen. I love the gray with your yellow door. Any plans to paint the planters a fun color? The white looks like nice against the brick – just wondering how another color would look. Still can’t over how you two accomplish in such a little amount of time :)

    Reply

  30. Kim@NewlyWoodwards says

    I’m so excited to see how this turns out! We just finished our exterior painting this fall and I can hardly believe how much better it looks. Since we built a garage, we chose the color we wanted for vinyl siding and then had it color matched. It definitely made the color choice so much easier.

    We had aluminum siding, so the prep and process is a little different, but if you are interested – here’s the post.
    http://www.newlywoodwards.com/2011/10/painting-aluminum-siding.html

    The grey is a million times better than the peach and it was worth all the effort. I’m sure you’ll feel the same way!

    Reply

  31. Malissa says

    We painted our house last fall. Our house is 90% brick so just the trim is wood which you would think would be easy but our butts were not happy after climbing up and down a ladder for a week. One thing we did might interest you though. I had read and heard that painting the ceiling of porches light, sky blue discourages insects like wasps and mud daubbers (no idea if that is their real name) from building nests up there. We have a big covered porch in the backyard and every year I had to spray down at least 20 of those little mud nests (sick). So we gave painting it light blue a try and it worked! I have only had ONE nest this year and it was on the brick not the ceiling. It also made the porch feel nice and tall because if feels like an extensions of the sky.

    Reply

  32. Niki says

    I definitely know what painting a house is about. When we bought our house the paint was in serious disrepair. We had to have it painted before we could get a mortgage. We did the 203K repair mortgage so that helped out a ton. I have a whole album on facebook with all the paint choices we tried (our house has 5 different colors and we bought about 30 different pots of trial paint total.. lol).

    Heres our house before: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150383741455026&l=13836c8fb0

    And After: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150654412775026&l=690b6146e7

    I love the grey btw! When I lived with my parents my room had an exposed brick wall and then brick half way up around the rest of the walls. I picked a similar grey for the rest of the wall. It looked amazing! Keep up the good work!

    Reply

  33. Jess says

    I love that you guys chose the grey! If you go down providence (from midlothian) towards courthouse, on the right hand side there’s a gorgeous little bungalow that’s grey with a happy yellow door. I love it!

    Reply

  35. Rhune says

    Sherwin Williams is having another 40% off sale this weekend (Nov 4-7)… worth checking out their Duration line – which I believe is SW’s equivalent to BM Aura. And the last time I went in during their 40% sale, they let me stack it with a “$10 off $50” coupon code as well!

    I’ve heard of people saying they bought gallons of untinted paint when it’s on sale, then bring them back to get tinted later when they finalized their color choices. Though that might depend on the store and manager’s mood haha. Also, although the guy at the paint counter told me they run the 40% off sale twice a year, this is the 2nd time I’ve seen the ad since September when I bought their paint.

    Reply

  36. Lynn says

    Nice! Out here, it seems the popular color to go with red brick is a sage green or gray-green, Often with a darker red or eggplant door.

    Reply

  38. Lynn says

    Oh! and I second Sherwin Williams. It’s what a lot of the pros use (and some local blends out here that aren’t in your neck of the woods — Miller and Rodda). BUT, after a lot of research, the SuperPaint at SW seems to have better reviews from actual house painters than the other SW lines, so that is what we used.

    Reply

  39. Carrie says

    I painted the exterior of our last house (a 1959, 1700 sq. ft. ranch) by myself. It went from a dreary yellow with brown trim and brown brick on part of it to a nice taupe with khaki shutters, and all white trim. I painted the brick the same taupe and we replaced the front door and painted it eggplant. I did it all by myself and it took 2 weeks but half the neighborhood stopped by to rave about it. What a difference paint can make. Love the gray and yellow on yours!

    Reply

  40. Ryan says

    My living room is painted that flagstone color. I picked it because I was looking for a warm grey that wasn’t so light it washed out to looking white. I will be painting the dining room Mushroom, but I agree that it could be too much for the exterior of the house.

    I also have a brick house and really need to repaint the blindingly white trim on the house (last painted 40+ years ago). I’m thinking of going with martha’s Sharkey gray on the exterior. Another taupe grey that I hope will work well with the brick since I have mostly cream brick with red accents. All the scraping is what’s holding me up on that project. so much prep, but so important.

    Reply

  41. Jamie says

    Ok, I feel like you guys are totally copying me!! :) We just painted our house grey this summer, we also had brick but it was an awful yellow color, so we painted that a darker grey and went with white trim! We had about 4 test-swatches on our house for several months. It was difficult to find a neutral gray, I didn’t want anything too taupey or too blue. We absolutely love it and have had so many compliments on the house!! I’ve also been planning on painting our front door yellow, I’m leaning towards a more mustard-ey color though. Love the idea, I think it will look fantastic!!!

    Reply

  42. Lori says

    You peeps can make up your minds quickly. We had our house resided in 2007, from masonite to hardiplank, and I had at least 2 dozen samples on the front of the house. I finally had to make a quick decision when my painter said he was starting the next day. After all of that, I went with my first color sample, BM Gettysburg Gray, and I have never regretted it. A very pretty gray with green undertones and depending on the whether it’s cloudy or the sun is shining on it….I still love it. I love the gray and white combo. It should look great on your house.

    Reply

  43. Staci says

    Love the color you’ve picked. The white trim will totally pop and I think it’s going to look so sophisticated!
    As far as house-painting goes, unfortunately last week we painted our ENTIRE exterior. It’s a long story due to an extreme paint mismatch which I’ll link to below. All I can recommend is DO get the paint with primer, and do your job quickly or it will become the dreaded never-ending project. Of course, I don’t need to be telling you this… you (usually) complete your projects in mind-blowingly short amounts of time :)

    Reply

  45. Kelsey says

    I absolutely love the darker gray color! Some houses in my neighborhood have been going with a similar color and it looks amazing! I do like the light gray too, it is just less bold.

    Reply

  48. Beckers says

    I think that will look great! My husband and I tackled painting the entire exterior of our house this summer (in the Texas heat!) but it turned out so well because we didn’t have to worry about rain and any paint bubbling. We used the Behr Premium Plus paint with the primer in it and it was absolutely wonderful! We loved painting with it and would highly recommend it.

    Reply

  49. Janna says

    Can’t wait to see it finished! We just resided our house with an engineered wood product and thankfully it came painted in a shade of grey that I loved. We did have to paint all the trim, soffit and fascia that we replaced. I used Sherwin Williams Duration exterior paint in satin extra white/Zinser primer and loved the results. I did find that using a small roller worked best as it was taking forever with a brush! While our new door isn’t painted yet, I’m definately inspired to do something bold! You can see the progress if you like! http://swooninteriors.blogspot.com/2011/10/exterior-update.html

    Reply

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