Okay, this weekend I was at it again. Another quart of this time BM Valley Forge Tan which is actually a taupey grey color - very nice and more life to it than the BM Briarwood. So far on the house are painted swatches of BM Briarwood (dark taupe, but looks muddy to me) and BM Stone Harbor - a gray but with a little too pink in it and it doesn't seem rich enough of a color. I didn't try the Annapolis Gray as planned, but that will be the brightest of all of the colors, but we shall see. I'm told that it looks more tan than gray.

jejvtr: I like the first link you showed, but the second one did not work. You are right the columns look similar. Perhaps you should leave them afterall, they are growing on me. It has a certain delicacy with the arched roof and you may change you mind also once the trim is painted different than the house color. Which is probably another reason my vote is for a non-white base color--to accentuate your lovely trimwork. I'm glad you are looking at other homes similar to yours for inspiration. When we were remodeling last year, I always kept a digital camera in my car and I would snap pics of features/colors/etc of houses I liked--usually while picking up or dropping off my kids from school or sports practices. I would try to drive a bit in the residential areas. Then when we were finalizing paint, I had my paint swatches with me and I would go up to houses which I liked and compare paint swatches. Once you and your DH find an inspiration pic I think this is helpful to narrow down to an actual color. You will always see things we don't, like lighting and how it works from various angles. What does DH think? Still white/red?

Well, with the caveat that I've been studying Victorians, I think its nice to have contrast between the flat surfaces (front door, shutters and garage door) and the trim (door frame, garage door frame, and gable board above the e garage). Also, despite the current trend toward white windows, doing dark sashes is more traditional - the idea is that dark sashes make the windows look larger - plus, white doesn't seem to go with your brick. So I'd recommend bronze for sashes and gutters and any painted metal on the property (exterior lights, fencing - a wrought iron fence might look really nice with the brick, or you could paint the picket fence.) Then, you want 3-4 colors for the house itself - the body color, the main trim color (darker shade of the body color, in keeping with "coordinated and tasteful") for the door frames, window frames, garage door and gable edge, and the front door/shutters/garage door in one or two colors - shutters and garage door together with front door different, garage door alone with shutters and front door together, or all 3 together. It is very common to do the front door in an acccent color, and I do think a dark red that picks up the darkest red in the bricks would look great. The shutters the same red would be more lively, the shutters a dark brown would be more traditional/subdued. Doing the garage door, shutters and front door all the same would also work, but I think you want to downplay the garage door and play up the entrance, so I'd probably keep those two different. Note that using a lot of different colors will increase your painting cost - the simplest would be medium body color (taupe) with dark trim/garage door/shutters (dark chocolate), and red on the door to give the house some color. That would still look nice - there's no real need to have the trim vs garage door/shutters distinction. There's a good book you might be able to find at the library called "The Perfectly Painted House: a Foolproof Guide for Choosing Exterior Paint Colors" by Bonnie Rosser Krims. I found it very helpful. Let us know how it turns out! -- Amanda

There are the exterior window color choices we have to choose from. The one on the left is cashmere, bronze in middle and pebble grey on the right. Was leaning towards the pebble grey as blends in with the brick mortar. Was not sure if the cashmere was just a little off color, bronze kind of looks like the aluminum windows we are replacing. Would be going for double hung with no divided lights as both my husband and I like the uninterrupted view without divided lights. Other other possible exterior window color is black, but my husband kind of nixed that idea as did not like it.