Paint with primer, is not the same thing, as a good coat of exterior primer, before painting. Nothing takes the place of a very good quality primer when painting, interior or exterior. I do like low lustre paint the best, but, in your case, yes, I think the flat would be a better option. It wont show every little mark on the siding. Is the yellow type siding staying? If it is, I would not be using Hale Navy. The brown that you have is a much better choice to go with the yellowy color. However, I dont think the roof goes with brown all that well either. Maybe pick a color from the roofing itself.

Thank you Cat, No the yellow on the new Hardie siding we put up and is just the primer color their products come in so that will be painted as well. Agreed on the paint and primer in one. The roof is Cambridge gray which is basically light gray and charcoal gray (salt and pepper) and was part of the condition of the sale knowing we would be painting in the future. Two years ago we were walking around the house thinking of paint which is when we discovered the chimney pulling away from the house. Yikes! $15,000 later and a lot of hard work for two plus 60 folks we just got our final inspection passed. Ready to move on.

Hopefully some pros will chime in as well on the flat paint, and what the Benjamin Moore guy said and maybe some opinions on Ultra Spec Exterior. I see lots of guys like the interior Ultra Spec 500. I was appreciative that the guy could have just try to sell me a more expensive paint but thought this product would be more appropriate for our siding. The Hale Navy covers the brown no problem.

I feel like the low lustre is still too shiny and makes my crappy siding reveal all of its inadequacies.

Sheen on exterior usually dissipates quite a bit after a few months. If you give it a minute (few weeks) to cure out, you probably won't feel the gloss as much as you do with fresh coats.

Thanks Lori, I know others mentioned this. I guess I was thinking that with how far paints have come technology wise with color retention and fade resistance that they would hold on to their sheen better too. Maybe people just get over it more than the actual sheen dissipating but what do I know as I've only painted 1 house before and that was many, many years ago. I have been by some recent housing developments in the area and they still look pretty shiny. There is a house several blocks away who painted their house in Seattle Seahawks colors. The blue looks to be SW Naval along with green and gray accents and it is s shiny as the day they did it about 3 years ago and a few houses away another house that was painted a navy blue (maybe Hale Navy) last fall and it is still shiny although not as much as the Seahawk house. I guess that is what is giving me pause as Hale Navy is an intense color. But they may have used satin instead of low lustre.

I thought the hardest part was choosing the color. With my gray roof and concrete driveway and river rock I was afraid to pick a gray color as their would be no contrast. We tried Gentlemens gray which is a beautiful color but it felt a little to intense teal color to me although my husband saw it more as gray and I've heard other people read it as navy. Funny how different people perceive color differently. Tried spellbound too because I was trying to find something mid range but just not finding it. At first I tried White Dove for the trim, gutters and garage door but it read way to yellow to me but SW Snowbound hit the sweet spot and matched the color of our vinyl windows.

By the way the front of my house is usually not that bare. We have beautiful potted plants out front but I moved them to take a picture so I could upload it to BM and SW sight for color preview but it was so hard tracing window trim and gutters I gave up. I want to change out the light and get a new front door and put some proper trim around it and the garage door as I think that would help a lot for curb appeal.

I loved this house that was from Fixer Upper because the color is cheerful but overtime I try to match the color its too aqua or too turquoise. Of course they don't say what color it is :( I will say Hale Navy is a great neutral. I have a lot of directions I can go with as far as pops of color for potted plants, front door light, cushions on bench and greenery really pops against it.

Anyway, thanks so much for your insight Lori. By the way, great website you have!

I was thinking I should have added this post to design dilemma too but not sure how to do that. Maybe I'll repost over there unless someone can direct me how to do that.

Couple of questions:

• Some people are saying your roof should be darker than house body color. My roof is salt and pepper gray but Hale Navy is much darker. Is this a problem and I need to choose a much lighter body color? I thought the contrast would be good between the roof and the concrete drive
• Trim was going to be Snowbound, downspouts will be matched to the body color but what about the gutters? Match the trim or should I paint the gutters Hale Navy as well?
• Front door color choices if I don't do a stained wood front door besides yellow, lime green or coral? Should I just use Snowbound or ?

Thanks!

@Karen Could you post a picture of your Hale Navy downspouts? Thanks!!