I would post in the Home Building forum, lots of good advice over there!

Okay, I will post over there too! Thank you!

I would consider pale browns and creams. They will look pretty and kind of go with your neighbors as well. I am in CA as well and really don't like the peachy builder home colors.

One suggestion my old painter gave me that helped was to print a bunch of black and white copies of the house and color it with color pencils. Make several combinations. Then you can see what trim looks good in what color etc.

Lalitha

The problem isn't the house color. It's fine. It's the BIG WHITE GARAGE DOORS that shout at you. They should be painted house body color, and if you're keeping the white trim on the windows, then the trim that's currently painted body color should be painted white as well. And either remove the fake rock on the front of the garage or wrap it around completely. It's another thing that SHOUTS.

Agreed.

Thank you for responding! Our plan is to paint the garages the same color as the body. I agree, they are in your face. I drove to a new development to look at the house colors and schemes and every house in the development had the garages either the same color as the body, trim or an accent color. I liked the look. The trim will be painted a white color to coordinate with the windows. The windows are vinyl so painting them is not an option. The painter had suggested the trim be painted a closer match to the windows. You can't really tell but the rock detail is on columns that are throughout the whole front of the house. We wouldn't be able to remove them. They do seem to scream out in the picture but in person they aren't that bad.

What I am really struggling with are the wood detail at each of the pitches of my roof. There are three of them, the largest in the front. I am not sure if I should paint those lighter or darker?
I found this picture on pinterest:

Wow- been there, done that - I actually painted my old garage to look like a checkerboard of colors and then didn't go with any of them.

Our neighborhood has a lot of stone colors - but I wanted something different to break the mold but not go too far out.

So after playing with about 36 paint samples, I designed my own color - I have the formula in case I need more but I get a lot of compliments.

It may be too dark, too green, and too gray for your taste - but this is it. I started out wanting multiple colors and I didn't want white trim - but I have white trim as I like the contrast.

Don't laugh too hard at my painted garage..

I love that look! That is what I am going for but it will be a big difference from the other house on my block. I am trying to go with my taste but also keep the other house somewhat in mind. The frustrating part is paying for the many samples, it gets really pricey! I just picked up 3 more today but the sun was going down while I was painting. I could tell just from painting them they weren't right. I was strongly leaning towards Waynesboro Taupe which is Benjamin Moore but it would have to be color matched. I have not had very good luck with color matching. I don't think it would be such a struggle for me if those wood detailed pieces weren't there. I just don't know if I want those to be highlighted or blended. I may end up with more samples...

mommy - I remember the samples - this is different than anything else on the block. I modeled it off a high end house a couple miles away that I admired and finally had enough guts (to my DH chagrin) to knock on the door.
Turns out they used a paint company that no longer makes that color, so it was all paint match. I wanted a bit more green than the model but the same richness.
The owners were great. I bought Barnes and Noble gift cards for the kids and cookies for the owners and kids.
Color matching was a disaster - I finally started mixing my own and they still couldn't color match (BM and SW). Then I said - what about simple math - this sample has these items, this one has these and your color match doesn't have all of the elements - so, I calculated out a formula and said - mix it! They said it never works but it was exactly what I was trying to achieve.
BTW - I started out wanting to stick with basic stone and then kept getting braver and bolder. The neighbors love it as they know it was a labor of love and I let them vote on the garage door colors (although none were used that are on the door but a mixture of a 2 of them)
I can send you the SW color formula (I wanted BM initially but they were so far off on the color that I finally gave up)
The SW has a lifetime warranty on the paint - not that I believe it.

Just had to respond to this post because my cyber-twin A2 posted about her house color and making a break from the hum-drum neutral tan colors of the neighborhood. I also was bored with the tannish color on my house and all the neighboring house and wanted something different. A while ago a house that we drive by on the way to our friend's home went from a pale tan/ yellow color to a beautiful blue/green color. Both my husband and I remarked on how much nicer the house looked. It made me want to paint our house. My husband was the one who had the guts to stop and ask about the color. The homeowners happily shared the information.
I got samples and tried it in a couple locations. I asked my neighbor to look at it from her house and give me her opinion. She said she loved it and loved how some days it looked more blue, some days more green and some days more grey.
I painted the whole house myself. People I didn't even know stopped to tell me how much they loved the color. I have also had someone stop to ask the paint name/manufacturer of the paint. There have been several other people in the neighborhood who have now also changed their house color from the tans to something else.
I think you should break the mold in your neighborhood and go for a little more color.
The paint I used was Sherwin Williams Retreat. You can't see in the picture but the garage door is the same color as the house. Here is how it looks.
{{!gwi}}

Badgergal - That is too funny. We really must be cyber twins. Check out my garage door - retreat is on their but I have to find the key to remember which swatch.

18 years ago, when we first painted our house the required stone color, I was telling someone about painting our house and she asked what color we painted it- I was so proud of our neighborhood match- heather stone and she replied - another boring stone.
So after putting new hardi siding on the house, I remembered her comment and started to get creative from there and the rest is history.
Of course in downtown A2, anything goes- purple, pink, etc but the subs are more traditional.

A2 gemini, three years ago, after I had painted the house, we decided to put Hardi-Plank on our house. I still loved the color of my house so we had the planks custom factory painted in the Retreat color. I still wonder why we didn't think of the Hardi-Plank before I had spent weeks painting my house all by myself. So cyber-twin, Hardi-Plank, another thing we have in common.

Even if you're not going to use SW paint (I think you might want to - your painter can use whatever paint you tell him to by the way) you can still use their visualizer tool (link below). Upload your photo and play with their exterior paint colors.

Here is a link that might be useful: SW Tools

The problem with going with a more dramatic and contrasting color is that faux stone. It will really make it stand out in a bad way because it doesn't wrap all the way around the garage. Does it wrap all the way around the posts? If not, then definately think about removing it entirely. It would be a better look.

A2gemini, how would you describe your color, is it a gray? I have put several gray colors up and many of the ones I sampled have a green hue to them. Lovely colors but I wasn't expecting the green. I worry about how the whole house would look. The others end up looking like concrete and that won't work. I really am leaning towards a gray but I have to decide whether it will be a gray-green or gray-brown.
Badgergirl, Retreat is in my garage, along with Oyster Bay. I sampled both of those for my dining room and was seriously considering Retreat. I ended up choosing BM Weimeraner mainly because I was afraid to go with such a dark color. I used Comfort Gray for my living room/kitchen (also on the same color chip). It looks beautiful on your house. I think I may just pull out the sample and see how it looks on mine. I recently knocked on a neighbors door to ask about their concrete stamped driveway. My family thought I was crazy! I will let you know what I think of Retreat later today.
Edited to correct my grammar mistake: their replaced there! I saw running post about errors and I figured I better fix it!!haha!

This post was edited by mommy2nk on Wed, Dec 12, 12 at 11:35

I imagine someone else hit this point, but since you don't like the colors on the other houses, I suggest choose a color you really do like BUT keep it in the same light-dark range (value) as the houses close around. That way the color contrast will be gentle and the value harmony strong.

Mommy
It definitely has some green tones in with the gray - but the light makes it look either more green or more gray.

The closest color match is Thunderous6021. Thunderous has a lot of green tone but we softened and lightened it with a medium gray.(It was called Mansard stone but it was a custom color.

If you are interested, I can send you the codes to make the formula.

A2gemini, I am leaning towards going lighter. I just went to Sherwin Williams and Thunderous is a little dark. I am worried about going to dark since the houses on my block are lighter tones. Someone suggested to pick a color I like but stick with the lightness of the other house. I think that might be a good idea. Honestly I am all over the map with trying to figure out the color for the house. I think I want to go in one direction and then I second guess it.

Hollysprings, when you say a contrasting color are you talking about the wood gable pieces being the contrasting color or the house in total? I drove around a new development in another area and saw some house that had the gables kind of like mine. I actually liked the look of the ones that were painted the same white color as the trim, or lighter then the stucco. I am leaning towards painting the trim, gables and windows a white color. The shutters and door will be an accent color and the body and garage will be one color.
I don't really understand what you mean about the stone being wrapped around the garage. I took a few more pictures showing all the different columns. I think removing the rock would be a challenge and I am don't think we would want to add more. For the house color I am trying to draw inspiration from the rocks.

FYI, a gable is just the wall under the pointy part of the roof. The decorative boards on your garage gable are, I think, battens, which are just pieces of wood that cover up the seams between the wood siding. They are primarily decorative, and if you don't like them, you could probably take them off. (On older Tudor homes, you might see a similar effect created with actual beams, and those would be structural and not just cosmetic).

Because your house has the whole California/Mediterranean thing going on, I don't think that highlighting the battens is going to be in keeping with the style of the home, so I would favor painting them to blend in. You could remove them, but you might find that makes the garage gable too plain and boring.

As others have suggested, you will have to choose a paint that works with the stone, unless you want to remove the stone. The stone definitely has some of that peachy thing going on, although it has some more muted grays that you could work with.

Based on your pics and my images for Waynesboro Taupe (that is, take this with a grain of salt since computers don't always render color right), I don't really like the Waynesboro Taupe with the stone. Here are some colors I liked better:

Chelsea Gray
Gettysburg Gray
Sandy Hook Gray
Fairview Taupe
Iced Marble (this one runs to blue-gray, which might be too much out on a limb for your neighborhood)

I think that you could keep black as an accent color (I like black and taupe together) for the shutters and maybe the front door. I would like to see the garage door go dark, either matching the wall color or even going a few shades darker. The white draws too much attention to what really isn't a great feature of the house (I'm not a fan of prominent garage doors in general, let's not make them stand out more than they have to.)

Benjamin Moore's color viewer has a sample picture called "Ageless Tudor" that has some characteristics in common with your home (stone, board and batten gable) that you might want to use for experimenting. Or I think you can upload your own photo, although I can't vouch for how well that works.

Send us your final picture - and remember SW can paint on-line for you!