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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. Liz says

    It’s crazy! I feel like you are in my mind!! We painted our kitchen a “grellow” color (I was SO hesitant about the choice, but then loved it once it was done), and a few months later, you painted yours nearly the same color. It was great verification that I’d made a good choice. Then the same thing with the yellow door … we’d chosen the color, but not painted it when you posted about painting your door yellow and ORBing the hardware (ours is already dark). And we JUST finished painting our entire house gray on Monday! We used Miller Paint’s Paved Path … it is really similar to the one you chose, though maybe a bit darker. We are in love! We don’t have any brick, but I’m sure you’ll be so happy with your choice, too! Too funny!

    Reply

  4. Lou says

    When it comes to decorating, my policy is always one of, “do what you love.” But I have to confess that seeing your comment about dark painted houses and white trim made me kind of happy. See, at some point I plan on painting my little house a dark navy (and keeping the trim and porch white). Since I think you folks have some good taste and all, it made me feel validated.

    Reply

    • Ashley says

      YHL — Love the color!
      Lou, I love that you’re painting your house in navy and white. We’re doing the same with white and light grey accents! We’ve had numerous paint test swatches on the backside of our house for almost 7 months (gotta make the neighbors think we’re sorta normal). Just this week, our debate was settled. I discovered two navy and white chevron planters for our front porch. The faded dusty green of our little beach bungalow has got-to-go now, all to accent my great planters!

  5. caroline says

    Gosh that would be rather precious of the neighbours surely???

    Love the grey its very similar to what I have picked to paint over our crellow (awful cream & yellow colour) we’re contrasting it with a darker grey in sections like guttering and door and bits & pieces.

    Your work is so helpful as we have a similar house here in Australia (although ours has less charm) and it gives me great ideas.

    Excitement plus as the brickie is here to help construct our new garage on the side.

    Reply

  7. Kara says

    I think the gray will look awesome! We just painted our house this summer, and had a similar “before” of cream colored wood next to brick (although ours is a split level). We ended up doing more of a neutral taupe-y brown, though, since our brick is not as pretty as yours and a gray next to it looked really washed out and matchy-matchy. We did tons of swatches but I still think the name of the color (latte; yum!) ended up having more influence than it should have, considering it makes no difference in look! Do you guys ever get any attachment to the names of the paint colors you use?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Yes! Usually when I’m playing with swatches I’ll say “ooh Sharkey Gray sounds so fun!” or “I hope Escargot wins!” but in the end we try to concentrate on the color and try to forget all the cute dueling names!

      xo,
      s

  9. Hilary says

    Looks great. Since purchase, I’ve wanted to paint our shutters or something…. can’t for the life of me pic out a color. It’s a brick colonial w/ light grey trim paint but the brick is orange-ish – shudders are brown. Kinda blah!

    Reply

  10. Sarah R. says

    I’m so curious to see the finished look. I, too, have a red brick house with a hunk of white siding in the middle and I don’t like it, but I thought painting it would look odd. The house looks kind of old-ladyish on the outside, so I’d love to paint that white siding to give it a more modern, fresh look.

    Reply

  13. Kelly says

    I cannot believe that you are painting the exterior yourself! Now that’s a serious DIY project!

    We just had our house painted this spring to also give it a bit more architectural definition. I originally thought that we’d go with a gray–but decided that we wanted to be a little more unique for the area and settled on a navy blue instead. We love the result. You can check out the before and after here: http://www.hellodesignmeetlife.com/2011/05/26/hello_navy/

    We have similar brick to you, and painted our front doors a mid-toned gray (Sherwin Williams’ Dovetail.) Paired with our yellow mums for fall, it kind of reminds me of the direction your going. (Although, I think the Dovetail color might be closer to the Mushroom than the Flagstone.)
    http://www.hellodesignmeetlife.com/2011/10/05/embracing-fall/

    Have you guys also tested the color out on the other sides of your house to see the variance in how you perceive the value?

    Reply

  14. Trish says

    Wow – what a timely post. I’m in the same boat at the moment. My home has gray/orangey/reddish brick along the lower front, cream garage, mustard yellow hardboard, cream trim, green shutters, and until a couple weeks ago, a reddish roof. Ugh. I now have a dark grey roof, and the gutters and soffet are cream. I’ve been thinking about going grey and love your color. I thought maybe a lighter grey, but what to do about the shutters? Dark Grey? Have to work that cream in somewhere….Thanks for the inspiration.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      I think charcoal shutters would be really nice (we’re considering that for ours!). You could also try to bring cream in with accents (big planters on the porch or a cream bench out front, etc).

      xo,
      s

  15. Julie says

    We repainted our entire house this summer and used Behr Ultra exterior with built-in primer and it worked like a charm. It’s smooth, easy to apply, almost doesn’t drip and it covers very well. We highly recommend it. Thought this could help!

    Reply

  16. Jennifer says

    I love the color!!!! I have been dreaming my next house to be gray or do that or even painting the brick gray..but that would be alot of painting and I would have to hire people for that,lol The yellow and gray combo is my new fav thanks to pinterest

    Reply

  17. Sheila says

    Oooh, I love the colour you chose. We’ve got a red brick house with ugly 70’s era reddish/pinky/brown siding. Replacement is high on our wishlist but not in the budget yet. Regardless, I’ve been on the constant search for the right colour to use when we do replace the siding and grey was high on my list (as was a yellow front door). So great to see a rendering that confirmed my choice. Love, love, love!

    Reply

  18. [email protected] says

    LOVE the Flagstone- the clear winner (at least from the pic you posted)! It looks SO good against the happy yellow door, and the brick mortar. Our house is currently a shade of grey and it is great because I feel like if it were white we would constantly be power-washing it!

    Reply

  19. Donna says

    Love it! But, how on earth do you guys have this much time & energy? My better half is currently painting our kitchen cabinets, and it’s like pulling teeth! My kitchen is unusable! I told him ” the folks at ‘ Young House Love ‘ have this listed as a WEEKEND project!” He just looked at me like I was nuts!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Aw man, I feel your pain! We definitely get burned out and tired and things take longer than we expect and budgets get blown! We just try to take comfort that it seems to be the DIY way! And sometimes projects that you think will be hard are less terrible than you expected, so those little “lucky breaks” keep us going. I have no idea why we love getting sawdust in our hair and paint under our nails, but we get some sick pleasure out of it!

      xo,
      s

  20. Jen says

    I can’t wait for this. It’s going to look SO amazing, your photoshop rendering has me so giddy. I am just like you guys, might have a kitchen reno going but ready to work on 1,001 other ideas and projects at the same time! Love it!

    xoxo,
    Jen

    Reply

  21. Morgane @ Bear,Dolly and Moi says

    it is so fun to read your blog, I must have a schedule similar to yours, as I am slowly working on my kitchen and the outside of the house! I also chose gray for the house, no more visible brick here, everything is off-white, a little too blah for me. I have already painted the door (not yellow like yours!) a dark shade of gray-brown and updated the hardware, I am still looking for a lighter version to paint below the windows, yep the house is a little patchy! Hopefully the neighbors won’t complain!
    thanks for inspiring us!

    Reply

  23. Lana says

    I love the Flagstone gray, and it grounds the house. We also have a ranch that had a light brown roof, white siding and brick. We painted it with Home Depot’s Behr exterior paint that includes primer in it. The colour was a rich creamy medium coffee colour called “Ethiopia” (not sure if I spelled that right. It took two coats but it looks fantastic. I have to say I was very pleased with the Behr Ultra Premium paint. Hubby and I are in our 60’s so we feel proud that we were able to do this ourselves and save a ton of money. The front of the house has creamy colour vinyl siding, but we did the other three walls, which were that old crappy abestos siding, and now it looks brand new. We had also considered paying someone to do vinyl on those three walls but it looks so great, that, that idea has totally bitten the dust.

    Reply

  24. Londen says

    I think that color will be perfect…and with your fabulous yellow door, yes! We just went through an exterior remodel (taking an ugly house and turning it into a craftsman style cottage) so I totally understand your fear. Our house looked like grandmas quilt because I had so many colors up there. The new siding came prepainted so there would be no changing it for the next 15 years. Talk about making everyone around me crazy!

    Reply

  25. RaenaMarie says

    We just repainted our house and used Behr Ultra Primer + Paint and it worked great! We’re still finishing the touch-ups, but we were very pleased. I’ll be happy to send you before and after pictures. We went from a tan/grey to “Sweet Buttered Corn” yellow. We LOVE it!

    Love your blog, too, btw. :)

    Reply

  26. Christine B says

    This spring the paint is going down! We are painting our house a DARk gray. Kinda like the gray you picked in the middle. We also have wood siding, cedar so we have to replace all old boards before we take on the paint job. That is why that job is not happening till the spring. Right now our house is green and it matches lovely with our 2 green cars. Haha it def. time for change.
    P.S.
    I love painted brick and if you can’t do that painting the house next to brick is the next best thing.

    Reply

  27. Rachel says

    Do you ever feel like the colors you match to Olympics No VOC paint are darker and tend to be more green than the colors you want? I recently tried to have Lowe’s color match two BM colors – Hazy Skies and Early Morning Mist and the colors are darker and have stronger green undertones? Do you have them just pull up the names for BM paints in their computer or match the swatch itself? I need a good greigy color for my living room but can’t find one in the no-voc paint that I like!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Hmm, we’ve never had that issue. They usually have the formula in the computer so they don’t even scan the card, they just use the white Olympic base and it comes out seemingly identical. Maybe ask them to look up the formula if they’re scanning it?

      xo,
      s

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Oh, I just thought of something! Are you bringing home swatches and holding them up in your house first? If you’re picking a paint color from seeing it in a magazine or another person’s home, the light in your house might just make things darker and more green (the light in every house is different, so paint can read completely differently in different homes). Hope it helps!

      xo,
      s

  28. Casey says

    Shout out for Bedford Gray–I painted my two-year-old’s room that exact color earlier this year when he switched to a “big boy bed” and I completely love it. It’s the perfect gray. Not to mention I think it will tie your exterior and interior together quite nicely. :)

    Reply

    • Casey says

      It is embarrassing that I’m crazy enough to remember this and come back to update three months later–but I used this paint to touch up something over the weekend, and for some reason it popped into my OCD head that I had shouted out to Bedford Gray in this comment. My color is Flagstone, which I knew at the time, but somehow I just typed the wrong thing. So imagine me, in November, instead of sounding like I used something you had decided against, saying “Shout out for Flagstone! It’s a great color! I love it!” Haha.

  29. Heather Banks says

    We just finished replacing and painting all of the siding/trim on our house – we were like you with paint too. We brought home a bunch of swatches, narrowed it down to two, and then painted swatches on the house. I’ll be posting pics soon on our blog – we used the same color palette. Gray for the siding, a creamy white for the soffit/fascia boards and trim, and a bold yellow front door! The only difference is we don’t have brick to work with, but a limestone type rock. We love the finished product – painting makes such a difference!

    Reply

  30. Kim S says

    Love the color choice! We have been wanting to repaint the outside of the house for a few months now but we’ve had some serious paint paralysis. We have the same brick/siding combo and yet we never though of gray…thanks for the idea! Maybe we’ll grab some of those test paint pots this weekend.

    Reply

  31. Julie says

    Love your color choice — but I’m partial to Martha’s Flagstone! We painted the kitchen in our old home in Flagstone and are now considering it in our new home. It’s dark while still being soft. Happy to see you guys are fans :)

    Reply

  32. Erin says

    i wish i could upload a picture of my house because we have house twins — well, my brick is a lighter/peachy-er. i painted my hardboards a similar, tad lighter, gray this weekend (i actually mixed the multiple shades of gray paint i had from leftover projects and testers and came up with a perfect color). my next step is framing out my posts, which are the next size skinnier than y’alls. really, they look like bed posts.
    erin in raleigh.

    Reply

  33. Emily says

    I don’t know how I ended up on this old post, but did you ever paint the front of your house? It still looks white in the gardening posts so I thought I’d ask.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Not yet! But it’s still on the list! It got too cold and then we got into the kitchen reno and now we’re embarking on the deck – but someday we’ll get there I’m sure!

      xo
      s

  34. Jessica says

    Did you end up painting the siding? Just wondered if you have an “after” picture to see how it turned out. Love your site! :o)

    Reply

  35. Kristy says

    I love your home but I feel the yellow door throws everything off! I would paint it a yellow that will match the grey better.

    Reply

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