House paint, shutters and colors, oh my!

14 years ago

My exterior paint color is fading to a lovely pinkish shade. ~sigh~ The paint started out a nice BM taupe color of Bleeker Beige. We live where the sun is HOT and will fade just about anything if left outside to long...given that the paint is 6 years old it's time to re-paint. We live in a harsh climate, on the river and have to have the exterior cleaned at least once a year...usually twice a year.

I would like for the house to just blend in with the surroundings.

FRONT FACADE

PORCH VIEW FROM FRONT OF HOUSE

I'm posting lots of pictures so you can get the idea of the surroundings and the house.

We would love to get advice on shutters and colors to paint the home. The vinyl soffits will stay and they are a sandtone color, the same as the actual trim on the windows. I would really like to keep the trim bright white. So I'm thinking of adding shutters where I can and changing the body of the house color.

THE SOFFIT COLOR-SANDTONE

THE WINDOW, TRIM AND HOUSE COLOR

RIVERSIDE VIEWS-Shutters??

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Comments (9)

lottamoxie
14 years ago
Body house color could go to a nice nuted putty/off white color. Shutters could be dark green or black or even a very dark red.
enailes
14 years ago
Your house is beautiful and looks great to me! I like the idea of dark green (Charleston green) shutters as well.
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I like taupe also but would paint the bottom brick part a darker taupe and the siding upper a lighter shade. Otherwise, with the overhang, your house will look top heavy as it does now. You want to minimize the mass of the second story and you can do that very effectively with a lighter shade of paint than you choose for the brick. A medium taupe for the brick and a lighter shade for the siding, then real shutters on hinged pins in a soft black. The house trim in a creamy white that complements the taupe.
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Pictures are needed.
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What colors do you see when you enter your home. The inside and outside should speak the same language. Minimally I would paint the shutters white to help balance the white around the door. It feels unbalanced with the large white door frame and just skinny pieces of white elsewhere. If you are happy with the color of the outside I would probably still pick a lighter color for the brick - just about 2 shades lighter to give some visual interest. Use the same color as the brick for the garage door. Pick a color from your interior space for the front door if it works with the outside color. If you want to repaint the brick and siding I would choose the same/similar neutral that you have on the inside to paint the outside and still pick a color from your interior to paint the door.
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oceanna
14 years ago
Have you taken a drive around a neighborhood you two like and picked out a favorite house color scheme you saw? That's what we always did.
natal
14 years ago
RR, dealing with the same issue here ... intense sun and high humidity. We used to wash the house every spring after the pollen finished falling and again after hurricane season ... now it's only in the fall.

Used BM Briarwood on the siding and Black Forest Green on the shutters. Have shutters on 14 out of 20 windows. You'll get a mix of opinions on shutters. The ideal is working shutters, but those don't come cheap. Now that I say that neither do regular wood shutters. Oh, and another "no-no" that I ignore is using shutters where it's obvious they're only for decoration. To each his own. One of the reasons I love them is because it gives the anoles a comfortably, cool place to live, lol.

Here is a link that might be useful:
mimi_2006
14 years ago
riverrat...Your brick is nearly identical to mine and the whole color scheme reminded me of my house. My roof color is nearly the same and I have white trim. My beige is a little less pink than yours, more green undertones I guess. The first coat they did was the wrong color and was a little pinky but I had them paint over it. I agree I like a house to sort of blend in with nature. I love your wrap-around porch. Anyway here's a pic so you can see the beige with dark green shutters. I did paint the porch ceiling blue though lol.
riverrat1
Original Author
14 years ago
Thank you all for your responses.

We don't really have a neighborhood to drive around in. I live in the woods way off the main street. The closest neighbor has a gray house and I'm not so much into gray for the house.

I would love to have functioning shutters on the largest of windows. I think I'll look into that seeing that we are now in hurricane season again. I really do want all the shutters to be functioning but I'll have to see what the cost is. I would love to find some really old shutters and have them refurbished.

natel, your link sent me to an error page :-(.

mimi, I do love your color combination. I think I'm going to the BM store tomorrow and check out different whites. I like the idea of 3 different white colors on the house. But then I think of the mildew and green mold I wash off twice a year...
natal
14 years ago
Sorry about that.

{{gwi:694635}}
anele_gw
14 years ago
I like gray, but I don't think it would go with your soffits.

Since you want to blend in, then I think the color you originally chose would be great-- your house is so pretty!

If you want to go in another direction, I think blue would be really pretty, and you could just do shutters in white. I found something interesting re: painting a house blue-- "haint" blue. Maybe everyone has heard of this but me, but I just learned tonight!

Here's a link, too, for historic colors. http://www.valspar.com/explore-colors/historic-colors/paint-colors.html

Here is a link that might be useful: Haint Blue
natal
14 years ago
RR, are you painting or waiting for fall?