msh2000 my stucco color is Amarillo ( master wall?), it looks like a light beige/tan
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Every house is stucco in my area. Colors are generally earth-tone, although my previous home was actually a nice pink color (!). There's a house down the street that I call the "chocolate house" that's really pretty - the color is about halfway between milk and dark chocolate.

My house has three colors. The main color is mustard, then there's brown and gray accents. You can see all three in this photo.

As an aside, I would never have been able to pick three coordinating colors. Sometimes it's beneficial to have a designer or colorist help you with these things.

We wanted our stucco to blend into the hillside as much as possible, so I told the painter try to match the vegetation. The stucco is Benjamin Moore Rolling Hills and the trim is Forest Floor (also BM).

Have the painter put up some 2 ft x 2 ft test patches of different colors you like.

This is the view of the hills across from us:

This is the stucco. This picture was taken just before dusk so the lighting makes it look different from what it really is. The color is really closer to the color on the tops of the hills in the first picture.

paco, house looks great! I remember your place from a prior post, as we're also thinking of hillside building (although not that steep!) Was it hard getting construction trucks, etc, to your site? Would love to see more pix if you have them!

Sorry for the OT note...we live in a stucco home...most homes in california are stucco. Ours is a beige, but there are ALOT of pink ones...they mostly look good only with the red spanish tile roofs, though.

I think as susi so calif mentioned, where you house is located may influence the stucco color. Here in the midwest, you will only see subtle earth tones or whites. We rarely see any of the colors that is common in the southwest or Florida. Ours is Sandlewood Beige by dryvit shown here on our newly completely barn.

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We spent alot of time looking at other homes with Stucco,this is what we decided on. We really like the choice we made.

I am in the midwest. Will it be tacky if I chose a bright florida or mexican color?

What is the style of your home? If it is a Mediterranean, southwest or Florida-style home, I think those colors would work even in the midwest. A Cape Cod or farmhouse, not so much.

We are in the midwest, and in my humble opinion, stucco that is painted anything other than earth tones looks out of place. There is a house in a very nice neighborhood not far from ours that is stucco and nice yellow, but it just shouts "I belong in Florida!" simply because that color "isn't done" around here. Hope I didn't burst your bubble...

Picture your house with a foot of snow on the ground. (Didn't stop neighbors from siding in Cobalt Blue!)

Our house is "champagne" color -- cream to me -- with same color rough brick portions alternating with the stucco. Limestone (cultured stone) trim at windows and doors. Roof is blue-grey. Driveway is bluestone chip.

STOCKY: What is the name of the color of your stucco??? I really like it!!

juniork,

OT: I'll post pictures and describe the issues we faced with the hillside a little later when we are closer to being finished.

We built a new house in an older established neighbourhood. Our stucco is a dark blue...Benjamin Moore "Raccoon Fur". Our trim is ICI "Soapstone" (off white). Most houses in our city are beige, brown-beige, grey, grey-brown, and the occasional browny-green. We couldn't stomach adding to this dull palate with another beige house, so we went with something different. There is a lot of building going on in our city, and we get "cold calls" once every couple of weeks from folks knocking on our door wanting to know what color our stucco is for their own build. We live in Western Canada. We also debated "fitting in" with a beige house, but decided to go with our gut, and we are happy we did!

I have just re-read my previous post, and it doesn't really sound like I meant it to. There is nothing wrong with beige, brown, and grey houses, and some of the most beautiful houses I have ever seen are buildings with these colors. There are just a lot of them in our area, but what I meant to emphasize to the OP, was go with your instincts, be they grey, brown, green, yellow, red, purple or pink! I love color. Maybe a yellow or red could achieve the "happy, welcome home" look you are seeking.

Our house (pardon the older picture) is a kind of buttermilk colored stucco and it looks nice in both summer and winter.

I might go with something like peachieone house. I live in the midwest. My house is one storey though.

Here's mine. I wish I could tell you what color it is but I can't find it! Kind of an important fact! Hopefully the stucco guy has the name of the color. We are in Central TX and I think the color blends well the region and neighborhood.

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Our house is just on paper right now, but the plan is to go with a medium-to-light shade of grey, with grey shingles (had hoped to go with a moss-green standing seam metal roof but the $$$ is putting that out of the question), and a deep burgundy-purple trim (the Kolbe window people call it "merlot"). Our lot looks a lot like paco6945's lot, as does the view!
I like the way the colours look on paper, but I'm a little concerned that it will look stark in real life -- although paco6945's hose doesn't look one bit stark, so that's VERY comforting!
But paco, I'd be interested in knowing how your stucco is weathering? There are a lot of houses around here that have trails of grime that wash down from the roof, and I'm not sure the colour I want will be any good at camouflaging that.... Decisions, decisions, decisions......

----------------- Trilby (Nervous Newbie!)

MSH2000,

I know how hard it is to choose colors especially for first time home buyers and builders such as my wife and I. A year ago our builder gave us the daunting task of choosing the main exterior color and trim and personally I found it the hardest part of the entire home building process. The mechanical, architectural, and systems aspects seemed easier to me- just read a lot and the answers are there; but house colors forget it!

We also have a red roof such as yours and this makes color choices a little more restrictive. Our first color choice was bold and bright, and after the house was painted I knew we might have not made the "best" choice given our neighborhood. So we changed it. My wife and I promised ourselves that we will be true to ourselves and neither of us are scared of colors- thus the red roof, bronze windows- colors you don't find in our neighborhood. Everyone went for the pastels, washed out sandy light colored roofs, and the pastel Key West look. Well, our house is Mediterranean themed, not Key West so we both felt our house should not be a replica of everyone elses in the neighborhood, but it had to fit in.

My advice, and something I wish I had done PRIOR to letting my painter put one brush stroke on my home, is for you to get a sample jar of the paints you are planning to go with and try it on the house our on poster board and see how it all blends together.
We told our builder that we wanted to change colors and I wanted to provide the painter with my own paint. (in other words- not contractor paint) They obliged and I went with California Paints flat velvet base. The main color is "Wooly Thyme" and trim color is "chic magnet". See for yourself how it turned out in the link below. Keep in mind the original color was almost school bus yellow, while it might have looked nice in another neighborhood it didn't jive with some of my neighbors as the President of the HOA let me know in a nice way.

Again, we're not scared of colors but we wanted our house colors to have character and warmth and I think we were able to capture this with our colors.

A few things I learned about colors and some suggestions. Lighter colors on a tall/large house will stand out much more than lighter colors on a less tall one story home such as yours, but keep in mind that with a red roof, light colors might make your roof look "top heavy". The trick might be to choose a lighter earth toned color that's a few shades lighter than the one we chose, but not so bright that it makes your home look top heavy. Also remember the quality of the paint itself makes a difference in terms of how close the color matches in terms of sheen/shade/luster to the swatch- at least that's what I'm finding out.

Here is a link that might be useful: Andyk's build 08/19/07

I just stumbled upon this old thread. I would love to see your stucco homes, especially the ones with the metal roofs as we are going to be replacing ours with metal soon. Our house is currently white stucco, but after many years, I think it needs a change from the white. I am in South Texas. It's a Mediterranean style two-story home with a courtyard. Black wrought-iron gate. The only windows visible to street are two upstairs (tiny) windows: one in our master bath and one in our master closet. So I'm ready to paint the trim a different color, too. I LOVE the colors of Mexico, but am really nervous about such a drastic change.