I'm assuming you are going to get fresh coats on the trim and shutters too but you want to keep the same colors, right?

Because after being exterior in SW exposure Useful Gray isn't Useful Gray any more, same with the stain.

Yes and yes.

Here is the house now. The duracraft paint used did not hold up well at all.

Glad to hear you're doing it right. 🙂

Six years - in a dark color with an LRV of 20 - and SW exposure, isn't that bad verging on kinda good to be honest.

The answer for the body of the house is in the brick - which is hard to see well from here in the peanut gallery.

Consider getting chips/samples of your two known colors (Useful Gray and the stain) and holding them up to the brick, move them around. Good color options will sort of pop forward in a you'll know it when you see it way.

This might help. The warmer gray is the felted wool. The purplish gray is dovetail. The other are options for the top shakes. Amazing gray and Dorian. Dovetail is one I like because it goes well with the stone but I hate the undertones and I think it doesn’t work with creamy trims.

Painting starts in a week so we gotta make some choices.

I think it doesn’t work with creamy trims

Is changing the trim to a color that works well with the stone and that you prefer not an option?

Wow! Your stones look absolutely better close! They look warmer.

Thank you for the ideas!!!!

Andy Chandler

I find it helpful to be able to define what I like and don't like about specific colors as I go through testing. Your stone has the orange tones and the lower chroma (more gray, less colorful stones that are still an orange hue.

When we add gray to yellow we move from yellow to tan and from tan to greige and from greige to green gray.

When we add gray to orange we move from orange to beige and from beige to taupe and from taupe to violet gray.

There are no strict lines between the colors, just some are more green than another or more purple than another.

I pulled some different colors that are around the hues that you are looking at and are close to the warmth of your stone.

There are 3 dimensions of color (Luminance, Chroma and Hue).

If you look at the picture below I picked several paint colors with similar Luminance and Chroma and hues (h) that range from close to yellow (~ 90) to more orange (Less than 90)

You can see how the color goes from pinker beige to greener beige as the hue approaches 90.

The next one everyone knows - Luminance or light to dark - The higher the L value is the lighter the color.

The last measurement is Chroma. A value of 0=neutral gray. The higher the number the more colorful the color.

The next 3 photos are the SW Paint colors that are near the families you have been looking at ordered by from the most orange to toward yellow. (I also pulled the dominant color from the photo of your brick using

https://www.appypie.com/design/image-color-picker/

This is what the numbers can tell us. Experience then becomes key. The dominant color in the brick photo is too pink/violet to paint your exterior walls. Sunlight enhances the undertones, so you were right to go more toward Dovetail, but there is a reason you like Dovetail the best. It is closer to the hue of your brick than Felted Wool, which is a bit greener than I would want to go. You will have a bit less purple if you lift the Chroma up a bit, so I might test Pewter Tankard or Pavestone and see if that solves your dislike of the purple undertones.

I would also suggest that you test Dovetail again without putting it on your siding. Look at it on a sample board in the sun away from the current color of the house. Your current color seems to have a fair amount of green, which will make the Dovetail look purple. Our minds automatically compare colors that are next to each other and it tricks our brains into seeing something other than what is there. You always want to cover up the colors that are not going to stay so you can see the new color you are planning on using.

Below I placed Dovetail in the center of two of the other paints above.

Dovetail looks more purple in the first block and more neutral in the other block.

Wow! 🤩

This is an amazing amount of detail in a response. Thank you!

I’ve painted sample of Pavestone and will post tomorrow. I was looking at that color already. You are dead on about Dovetail. I painted a sample on a old fence post and will observe it tomorrow in daylight.

Here is Pavestone

Even away from the house siding Dovetail still shows the purple tones in daylight.

It is difficult sometimes for us to assess colors via the internet. What we see may not relate well to what you are seeing.

How do you like Pavestone? It is not as gray, but still pretty neutral. This should have reduced the purple. Operative word 'Should'. Lighting is different on every home and geography.

Once you have tested, you will want to test on each side of your home and look at it at different times of the day. Costs too much to paint and be unhappy with the end result.

I like the Pavestone. So does my wife. I need to find a lighter color that matches our trim for the shakes up top.

Pavestone on the left next to dovetail

Would help to do bigger color samples (at least 4 x 4 - anyone you know ripping out old cheap wall panelling?) Move them around to different parts of the house and view at different distances and different times of day.