What about a burgundy trim (color pulled from bricks) to go with the green?

I think a muted gray/green/blue or muted gray/green on house color would look better. For the shutters I would do charcoal, maybe not exactly the shade in the brick (has blue in it?) but something that would go. And, a light warm cream trim! A bit warmer and just a tic more saturated trim than you have.

This post was edited by jterrilynn on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 13:01

Here's your gray green, with trim from lightest brick & shutters from darkest brick.

And here's jterrilynn's gray green, same trim and shutters:

I used the roof to cue these colors: gold for body & trim & deepened it to brown for the shutters. Just to see how it would look.

Good Awn03, of course my preference would be my lighter with more gray/green lol. I think the shutters should stop short of actually being black though (but darker than my sample), more charcoal- ish on the darker end of a green/blue/gray chit so as to be a distant cousin to the gray/green house color and the gray/charcoal w/ blue in the dark brick. Or, I could be reading the brick color wrong due to my monitor.

Edited to say I like Awn's latest color too.

This post was edited by jterrilynn on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 14:13

Thanks awm. I like the lighter green myself. I tried to cut out most of the roof color since we need to reroof too. The color on the addition doesn't match the main part. The roof is a reddish color now but I want to go with a brownish.

Whatever color you choose, if you make it darker than the main body you drastically, and not attractively, change the proportions of the house.

Having the lower part dark and the upper lighter allows the house to appear grounded, not squashed-down by the dark gable looming over it.

(This effect is especially pronounced in this particular house because the color change happens immediately above the window trim, foreshortening the proportions of the lower section.)

The very dark colors proposed for the shutters exacerbate the problem by further diminishing the strength of the first-story's coloration by reducing its overall area.

You want a house or building to seem well connected to the Earth in a two-tone scheme. So the lower sections should be strengthened by being darker. (You can also sometimes visually strengthen the bottom by sheer size in comparison to higher, but much smaller sections. That can't happen here, obviously.) The upper parts can look good if they are lighter and fading towards the sky. The trim needn't be lighter, but the gable section should be since it is such a larger area..

L.

Here is a house with bricks about the same as yours.

liriodendron, can you give a visual example of what you feel would look nice? I want to further understand what you are saying.

This post was edited by jterrilynn on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 19:45

I don't want to copy & paste Pam's photo, but look at her house in this post on the Landscaping forum. It's just about the same colors, and I think it looks terrific.

Link to Pam's thread

What's funny, kind of, is that I've been trying to get away from the colors we've had on the house for the last 17 years, and the green is almost exactly the same color we had on the door & shutters.

{{!gwi}}

This post was edited by marti8a on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 20:48

The green is nice--that or perhaps a slight variation would be lovely. The babypoop yellow trim? Nah....

I like the lighter gray green and I actually like the look without any shutters at all. To me, it seems like there's enough going on with the bricks, siding color, trim color, and roof color.

But I tend to like simplicity.

I like the green! What if the trim was a little lighter...more like the color of the top row of bricks. Looks like it's in between your current trim and the new trim color :)

I think that is the color awm03 put in the photoshopped version of lighter green with cream trim. The brick is really a light yellow/tan, but I think a dark cream would work well with it.

randita, I like the house without shutters too, but someone (and we suspect the builder) knocked out a bunch of soldiers so the original shutters would lay flat, and then filled in the holes with cement. So we have to put shutters back up.

Its âÂÂmy brick is ALMOST like PamâÂÂsâ thatâÂÂs going to make it hard or impossible to pull off PamâÂÂs look. If you enlarge PamâÂÂs brick even more you can see a slight gray with green in some of the brick. Also, is liriodendronâÂÂs message there somewhere? PamâÂÂs house has lots of height, texture and two different roof materials. Plus, the gorgeous landscaping colors to further assist the paint picks. Still, you could probably get away with the gray/green house color but maybe go even lighter than my sample and a tic grayer and my suggestion of a lighter version of the top brick color for trim.

This post was edited by jterrilynn on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 23:22

I like this! However, I do not know the acceptable colors of your neighborhood.

jterrilynn, do you know what any of those colors are, or the gray green in your first answer? We're not in an HOA, so anything goes, and that's not always a good thing. lol

I LOVE the colors on Karenseb's home here. Is her house color close enough to mine that those colors would look good?

I told dh a lighter green with a gray tint in it, and he put this color on the house yesterday. I think it's too light and don't see any gray in it at all. He painted the green next to the green I did, but painted his yellow over the yellow I painted.

This morning I when I took this picture, I looked around my neighborhood and nearly every house has a shade of yellow with either green or brown trim. I'd like to be original but it seems it will look just like everyone else's house anyway.

I've got a software program that will let me try out different colors, but I lost the one I had downloaded when my computer crashed and can't find the CD right now. If anyone wants to take a stab at trying different colors, I'm open to anything.

This post was edited by marti8a on Thu, Oct 3, 13 at 19:06

Hi Marti, Lots of people here on this forum used paint / color consultants from their paint store with fantastic results. Your house is lovely so why settle after spending a bunch of money on paint just to have your house look ordinary â¦like everyone elseâÂÂs? What sort of paint brand do you want to use? Can you visit the desired store and inquire about paint color help at your home? I really think this is your best bet. IâÂÂm so very sorry I do not have names for the colors shown and even if I did they may not work as your brick will most likely look much different in person.

KarenâÂÂs house is beautiful, but not in your color family.

I had to laugh jterrilynn, because my dh works for a paint company and he is the LAST person who will help in color selection. We have 4 gallons of the mustard (baby poop) yellow sitting in the garage and he doesn't see why we don't just paint with that and get it over with.

Oh my Marti! Is he color blind lol? What I meant is that there are paint color consultants out there. Like any profession some are good and some are bad. I would ask aroundâ¦and maybe find a woman, statistically fewer women are color blind compared to men.

No, not color blind, just not tuned in to the fact that one color is better than another. It took me years to convince him that interior walls could be a color other than white or antique white. Probably part of that is due to working with commercial contractors so long.

Marti8a, I live in a subdivision were the majority of houses are a shade of tan/ taupe. My house was one of those. One day on the way to a friends house, I saw a house that had been a shade of yellow that was now a fabulous new color. My DH and I both commented on how great the house looked. We knew right then that was the color we wanted for our house. A short while after that my DH stopped and talked to the owners of that house. We assured them we did not live in the same area and they were happy to share the paint information.

The color was Sherwin Williams Retreat and I immediately bought it for my house. As I was painting the house, I had people in the neighborhood that I didn't even know stop to tell me how much they liked it. A person who did some work at our house asked for the color name and if he could take a picture to show his wife.

I tried that color on the picture of your house but it didn't seem quite right with your brick. I did try another color though that looks good to me on the computer. So below is my very first attempt to use Sherwin Williams paint visualizer tool. I didn't do the trim on your house. (On my house I just used a version of Navajo White for the trim and it works well.)

In case you are interested the color is SW Cast Iron

Thanks! That does look good; it's a nice greenish gray. I'll try that tool. I played with the one at the PPG website and with that picture, some of the colors looked pretty good. Then I found an older photo without the color dabbed on the gable and all the same colors looked icky.

we have the same color brick as you do---it's a reclaimed brick....very popular here. It's got almost a coral cast to it?? We went with a clay color and dark bronze trim..

Before:

After:

This post was edited by christine40 on Fri, Oct 4, 13 at 7:32

If it were me I would pick this combo from Sherwin Williams âÂÂGreigeâ pallet. It would be a way to use colors that would look good with your brick but in an updated way. You could even check out the next shade darker than Utterly Beige for your house color. Don't even try to go by the chit colors as they do not come close...buy some samples.

This post was edited by jterrilynn on Fri, Oct 4, 13 at 13:21

I like the SW Cast Iron color as it is a nice contrast for your light brick and picks up on the grays in the bricks. Very nice.

I finally dug out my software and have been playing with your ideas and some of mine. I don't know if any of you remember, but I had done this before and that's how I ended up with the dark yellow paint. But that was before the bricklayer screwed up and we had to stain all the brick.

Soooo, here it is with the current brick color. Would any of these entice a buyer? I have a favorite, but I don't want to influence you. Ignore the porch posts, rails and gable trim for now.

You can see more renditions on my flickr account (I hope. I just set it up today.)

#2 or 3. I would like #2 even better if you used a trim color that's close to the lightest shade in the bricks.

I like #2 but not the white trim. I like #3 but not the white trim and the door needs to be a tad more vibrant or I could imagine it in a high gloss with nice hardware.

Oh, and if you go with a red front door, I can recommend either "Chianti" or "Cinnamon Cherry", both by Behr. I have brick with a similar undertone, and both of those colors looked great.

I'm not crazy about the white trim either but I was trying for the main siding color and shutters. A lot of houses around here seem to have the fascia and soffit painted the same color as the siding. Any other idea for fascia color?

This post was edited by marti8a on Wed, Oct 9, 13 at 12:42

Oh, I found another I had done too, and can't seem to add to flickr right now.

I vote for #2 but w/o white trim as well. Could you do a mock-up using the colors of #2 but with the added porch trim and trim around the door as on #3? Love that porch & door treatment of #3!

I like #2 also but what about using color #3 as the trim color.

Ok, here is #2 with the trim color from #3.

When we bought the house, it had the turned posts that are on it now, with plain railings that were warped and had some rot so we took those down.

The most common posts on new homes around here are square cedar or redwood posts. I always thought I'd beef up the posts and go back with railings so it would visually bring the porch forward to compete with that big gable. But the color plays a part in that too. I don't really care for railings with dark paint. The posts and rails were originally a reddish color, along with the door, shutters and fascia and the siding was a yellow color, just about the color of the yellow someone dubbed baby poop yellow. It was faded and looked really drab when we bought it.

p.s. I'm glad none of you picked one of the greens. As much as I tried to like green on the gable, it just didn't work for me.

This post was edited by marti8a on Wed, Oct 9, 13 at 12:43

That looks real nice Marti! Just for the halibut can you do a picture of #3 with the sable trim but no railing just the posts and a slightly more vibrant door but in the same color family as the trim? Maybe a slightly âÂÂtadâ brighter eggplant?

Is there one in particular that you see as sable?

Here's one using a SW sable on the fascia, removing the roof color, and leaving everything else he same.

I have to admit that while that siding color matches the brick pretty well, it's my least favorite color.

This post was edited by marti8a on Wed, Oct 9, 13 at 12:39

not good at this but thought I would give it a try I was trying to get the trim closer to the brick color (using paint)

Marti I see what you mean by the posts not looking good in darker shades. I tried it on this one and it looked not nice. I like the darker trim on the brick area but not the porch areaâ¦is that strange?

Oh I added brass hardware and kick plate to make the door pop.

I know. When it comes to the turned posts and rails, I only like white or very light colors. I think it's the crisp look they give. But on the squared posts, darker colors are good, better probably.

We are thinking of replacing the door. Dh wants a wood door with a bigger glassed area to let more light into the living room. That would be nice but it puts another color into the mix.

Along with paint, I need to decide if I'm going back with the turned posts and rails, or the chunkier square posts.

When I showed dh all my paint renditions and asked which one he liked, he chose the photo of the house the way it is now. So he lost his voting privileges.

Update: I just called dh and asked him to bring home a quart of paint. It's a dark color like the BM 1489 Devonshire Green (which looks more gray than green) but not as dark. He looked up the BM color on a comparison chart and it is a really dark color on the chip.

I mentioned painting the siding light and darker on the fascia but he thinks we need to match the fascia to gutter (which we haven't done yet). That's why he thinks we should do white trim - because they will match white gutters. We're going to have seamless gutters put on and I found a few links to gutter companies and their colors. Not as varied as paint of course, but they do come in many colors. Link to gutter colors I know we could paint gutters, but dh doesn't want to start out with them painted.

This post was edited by marti8a on Wed, Oct 9, 13 at 16:08

What do you think of CLblakey's above? Looks pretty nice!

I like #2, with the gray/green color, but with cream trim. Pretty brick!

I wonder how close the buckskin brown gutter color is to your bricks very close to this

now here it is on the house

I like it. Dh brought home a lighter shade last night and I didn't like it at all, so he is bringing home this shade I hope. The painter suggested a lighter gray tone for the fascia, but I don't know about it. I'll try it out tonight.

I think I've got the right siding color here. I painted the section on the left and then took the picture before it was dry so it shows lighter than it will when dry. The section on the right was painted over the green so it is probably about right.

Now for the hard part. The trim colors.

I don't like the darker color A that I started with even though I have 3 gallons of it. :(

Color B is the one dh brought home the other night. It is the greige color but about 1/4 the intensity.

Color C is a mixture of half color A and half color E. I think a mix of 2 parts color A and 1 part color E would be a better match to the brick.

Color D is Navajo White and is the 2nd lightest color on the same strip in the color deck as the greige. It's got a bit more yellow than shows in the photo, at least in the sunlight. It's a bit cloudy right now.

Color E is a color called Parafin that the paint contractor picked.

I just realized I don't have a close up of the greige with the color that is on the fascia now. You can still see it in the overall photo. I'll call that color F. It's been on the house since 2003 so probably faded, not that I know what color it was anyway.

There is one color I like, but again, don't want to influence you. I just want to see if you agree, though I know you can't see the colors like I see them.

An issue for me, that both dh & the painter are blowing off, is the porch posts, rails, and shutters. If we use redwood or cedar posts, I'd match the shutters to them. That brings in another color I'd have to choose. If we use the existing turned posts and add rails, I'd paint them the same color as the trim but use a darker color for the shutters.

From all the photoshopping done here, which do you think would look best on this house, big square posts or turned posts and rails? I live in an area where Victorian houses and that look are very popular, but most of the newer houses built around us have redwood posts and other rustic touches.

First pick C, second pick C!

I like C also. Although a little more A mixed in could change my mind. It is hard to tell from small swatches. Color perception can change depending on what they are surrounded by!
To me the C on the lower right looks lighter than the C on the upper left, but I am sure they are the same.
When we painted our garage recently, the color at first appeared so dark, but only because the paint surrounding it was so light. The more we covered the original color, the lighter the new color appeared. It is all relative.

I like C and D.