Exterior Paint

Before deciding upon the colour, you need to first decide if you are looking for a light, mid-tone or dark color as the base colour of your home.   For most, choosing a shade is an easy decision and you likely already know what you tend to gravitate toward.

Light will dramatically change your paint colour.  If you are looking to achieve a soft relaxing beachy look but your sun exposure is intense, the result will be that your elegant, peaceful cloud blue just became a glob of white!   Sunlight is critical to consider when selecting your paint colour.  If your sunlight is intense your paint colour needs to meet that intensity too, therefore, be prepared to move down the swatch card a few shades so that you end up with the colour you actually want.

Before you commit to the ‘final’ colour(s), be sure to buy some small sample tins of paint and test each colour on the actual surfaces you will be painting.  Start with highly visible locations as well as high sun-exposed surfaces. These will help to reveal if your colour selection will achieve your ultimate goal.   Also, consider the various substrates you will be applying the paint to.  Each will absorb and reflect the paint and its colour differently. There would be nothing worse than buying gallons of paint that won’t produce the results you hoped for.

Once you have made all your selections and have confirmed them with swatches applied to the various areas of the home, your final consideration is that typically a home should not have more than 2-3 exterior colours.  While there are exceptions to every rule, in most cases a home can easily be overwhelmed with too many colours.  Be careful that you haven’t enjoyed the colour selection process too much, as you don’t want your house to look like the circus has come to town.   In these situations, less is often more!