is it vinyl or wood?

You could look at Benjamin Moore Chelsea Gray. It’s dark and beautiful, slightly warm. Used it for my exterior last summer and love it.

It’s hardy plank siding

I like the color. It looks very beachy, however, it also looks very plain. I would like to see something over the door, to protect from weather, and some colorful chairs on the porch. Maybe a nice patio below the porch. It definitely needs something to say beach house. Right now it doesnt, but, it is a very cute looking house.

what's wrong w/the blue? I like it.

what you need are some wood accents, a beachy color front door, paint the garage doors, and bring in some plants! even if you have to put them in containers.

Painting it gray is only going to make it look more dull, especially on overcast days.

bring in color and accessories.

how about some plantings in the rocks? this is a beach house. look at the native plants they used

break up all the rock w/a diff path down the middle. or curve it.

use driftwood or leftover wood (you can treat it w/a marine varnish)

or try some stone or cement large pavers

get a few bags of landscape glass in blues and greens. put it down between the wood or in the flower bed

look at this one w/the marine blue door, blue pots w/flowers, I gave you a RR tie walkway w/rocks, but it would look cool w/that blue sea glass I put under you window. assorted plants, some diff lights,

you don't have to do all these colors. just showing you some options. gave you some copper sconce lights, a pink door, pink plant, and just adding some carriage hardware (amazon) to the garage doors makes a huge diff. get a piece of wood and attach some modern address numbers to is. hang that near door w/a diff light.

there are so many things you can do!

coordinate colors w/native coastal plants. these colors would look gorgeous w/the blue of the house. cobalt ceramic planters, bright green bamboos and succulents.

collect shells and beach glass and use those

natural wood w/the blues/greens looks great. maybe add some wood for the porch railing or a low fence or screen.

put the money you would have used on painting toward all of these accessories and coastal garden landscaping. Paint your door one of those shades I posted

if you still hate the blue, then you can paint it, but I'm telling you, the soft blue looks great.

BM has updated painting site. Nice now! Check please Soot. You would be amazed.

yellow door would look good with soot.

https://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/paint-colors/color/2129-20/soot

The blue looks very coastal. Which is where you are and what everyone seems to want now. IMO, dark gray will look like a rainy day at the beach.

I’m with Kaili - that particular shade of blue isn’t great. I needs some green in it to feel more beachy to me as well. If you want a dark house, paint it dark. OR, Look at more green/blues to keep it more traditional coastal. BM Rhine River feels closer to a blue you might like. It doesn’t need some “dressing up” like the ideas Beth posted.

*does need some dressing up.

Yeah, we have to repaint anyway so the color is going to go. Our painter uses Sherwin Williams so weve been looking at their colors, Cityscape and Roycroft Pewter are the ones we like so far with a light blue green door? Still doesnt feel like weve found THE color and its hard to picture. LOVE all the ideas and input, please keep them coming!!

Please dont paint a beach house gray. I love Cityscape, its my favorite gray paint, but, I definitely would not want it on any beach house. Stay in the blue green soft colors, since you need to paint.

Are the porch railings required by law or by HOA? If not, I would eliminate those and enlarge the porch widening the steps to make it more inviting and useful as a deck for times when the ocean side of the property may be too windy to sit out. Also enlarge the lantern lights to be 1/3 of the front door's height. Add some bright and textural xeriscape for your locale, punctuated with some blue flowers to repeat the color of the house. This company is located in Portland.

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SW Meander Blue, Faded Flaxflower are shades of blue that are softer.
Rockwood is a grayish green that might work. Cityscape has a distinct brown undertone, so it can look dull on a large surface like your house. I would go with a brighter gray if you want gray. Or a grayish-white like Olympus white.
You will need to get Samplize pieces or poster board and lots of paint samples. Seeing colors in both daylight, dusk and evening makes a huge difference. It took me many, many samples before I figured out the right deep blue green for my former house.

This combo is nice. Could be your Cityscape paired w/Peppercorn and Extra White

Cityscape

https://www.kylieminteriors.ca/quick-paint-colour-review-sherwin-williams-cityscape-sw-7067/

Here's Roycroft and white on this siding. Without the warm wood tones (see below) it's going to look very cold and 'gray', especially on the coast. you have to warm up this exterior w/accents.

This does have a heavier blue/green undertone to it.

Here it is on this siding next to warm wood and stone accents.

Storm Cloud is a bit lighter, w/diff undertones. Do the garage door in Sanderling, (carriage hardware) and bring in the warm wood tones w/address placque and lattice (if you have a gate or fencing)

don't forget the greenery on the landscaping.

Here's your two colors together w/diff accent color options for the front door.

The Storm Cloud is beautiful!

Thank you! Im going to check out storm cloud! Our usual preference is to paint monocromatic with a pop of color on the door (just to make the blah achitecture look more modern). Storm cloud is a definite possibility! Thanks! and yeah we know we need to add landscaping, just trying to figure out the paint scheme first so we know the feel we are going for. We will definitely be doing something to the front porch railings and probably adding colorful pots and plants in front of the bay window. Does anyone know a way to mock up paint colors on an actual photo of the exterior? I have looked at the Benjamin Moore app and the Sherwin app and the colors aren’t accurate and they don’t fill well- it kind a looks like a bad child’s drawing. Im SUPER visual and just want to be able to see a few colors on the actual house.

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Stony garden:

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Hi, Kaili--

While you've chosen two of my very favorite SW grays that I both love and use often, I can't help but thinking that you're trying to make paint do more than it can here.

Painting your house one color won't make it modern. Read that sentence again.

A small beach cottage like this should look fun, inviting, and - above all else - charming. That can be achieved here with some of Beth's great ideas about incorporating color and a little landscape reinvigoration.

If you're drawn to a neutral palette at the coast here, I might still use SW Roycroft Pewter to recolor your three exterior lanterns (it looks great as a hardware color!) but I would consider SW North Star and/or SW First Star with Extra White as your trim color here to keep the dimensionality of the architecture in play. Visually flattening all that out by painting everything one color drains so much potential from this property's curb appeal.

And, if it appeals, a great eye-catching saturated color for the front door (maybe SW Refuge as a blue that's not too sweet). Hope that helps--cheers and congrats on your new place at the coast. You'll never get tired of the view!

Thank you so much- ok, reconsidering white trim :)

Im looking at my house again and the trim on the front is very minimal, thin and cheap looking. Not sure I want to emphasize that with a contrasting color? Thinking about doing something like the bad mock up attached but taking down the porch railings and replacing with modern stained wood slats, putting colorful plants and pots on the porch under the bay and changing out lighting and hardware? would also go w a softer blue/green on the door but again the mock ups aren’t great for color accuracy…

nope. I don't think that's going to look very good.

I like the idea of the wood railings and diff lighting.

But doing that all gray, including your garage doors isn't the best choice

there's no dimension. it looks lifeless. (A lot has to do w/that actual color. going darker would be better)

here's my mock up.

Since you're redoing the siding color, is there a way you could replace any of it w/board and batten ?

Many homes have this combo w/the siding. White board and batten AND siding, paired w/the black trim around windows, fascia and garage door.

Look at these dark bungalows. there is a combo of looks here w/the dark shake and dark board and batten. Of course this has the bright white trim, very similar to what you have.

Also all one color. Around the windows they did a soft grayish white, dark windows, but the stone work adds the contrast.

or, what if you redid the siding just around the garage area w/a composite wood-look siding?

This is stucco, but imagine your siding. Do you see the wood ceiling? what if you did that type of wood siding all around your garage doors? I'd actually go w/a darker color if you're going for this monotone look

here's an example. look at the wood siding placed just on one portion (ignore the stone on this one)

another example w/the wood around the garage door. this is basically what I picture for yours.

Here's my photoshop with the darker color. Like maybe Nightfall. a more saturated turquoise door color, and I photoshopped some coastal plants for your flower bed.

I love this look !

You can see how the wood siding (in this ipicture it's the wood shake, which you could also use here) really brings in a nice contrast. And I gave you darker garage doors that contrast beautifully w/the wood tones.

here's the house I photoshopped everything from. This color is Black Beauty, but if it's too black for you, I have some other colors.

This cottage has a white bay window. this also has smaller trim work. Notice how they did the solid black color everywhere, but used the shake portion on one part. and they only did the white trim in the gable. everything else is solid.

Of course the white picket fence is a beautiful accent here along w/the greenery.

I think if you want to use a solid color, replacing some of that siding with a wood or composite wood Shake/Shingle or the siding, is a MUST for the look you're after.

Here's another solid color used on the siding and trim, but bringing in the wood steps and the wood around the front door, make all the difference.

black siding paired w/a bright white trim. You could fatten up your trim, yes? this way the 'tiny' trim work won't look odd to you.

you see this house? now imagine it in that plain old gray color you picked for you photo. Which color do you think looks better???

The dark w/the white like this is better than the dull gray.

You could also use a shade of dark blue if the black is too much for you.

I happen to like Wrought Iron. I used it on my own home w/the redwood accents.

These two are also good choices. they have a blue/gray undertone to the softer black shade

front door color w/those colors:

I love the idea of the wood accents, unfortunately the siding is new and we don’t have it in the budget to replace. i asked husband about bulking up the front trim and hes pretty adamant that we not ”penetrate the envelope” since we are oceanfront. we could incorperate wood accents in the porch railings and wood mounted address numbers? Here are a couple more photos, including the back, which is much less probamatic! The interior is very modern minimal in decor, pretty much the opposite of the front exterior!

Oh and it used to be an equally awful pink….

looks much better now.

it wouldn't be much to just do the area around the garage doors. it's hardly any, but it would make an impact.

why not look into it and see exactly what the cost would be?

I like the decking color around the back. you could try and match that on the railing on the front.

great house and view!!

You need an awesom piece of art on that wall above the console!

I think the back deck needs to be extended across the entire house to maximize its potential. You could do a black and white pallet if you want a uniform color (white body and trim, black accents, deck, etc). It will look very modern and bright.

Do you like this color? I think it might be Ben Moore Harrisburg Green, or close to it. I think a roof over your front door would be practical and cute and help the rather flat aspect.

We are looking for a wonderful piece of art for over the console for sure! weve discussed enlarging the back deck, but it would ruin our amazing sightline, so we’ve decided to keep it the way it is and have put cute turquoise modern adorondaks out there. I dont hate green but aside from some color ”pops” i really prefer more neutrals? Here is a house down the street that we like the body color of.

that's pretty close to Storm Cloud. why not get a sample of that, plus a few others you like, and paint on some test spots to see what color looks best?

I don't like that medium gray shade in your SW paint-on app you did. To me, it looks like a depressing prison color.

These may be BM colors, but SW could color match w/one of theirs.

What about Coastline?

prob not your thing, but this beach house color combo is so pretty, especially w/the blue hydrangeas.

This is a nice color combo for exterior, and interior. The Eider White is more of a grayish white, and would look nice w/the Granite Peak if you want to do a blue/gray on the siding. Stardew would also look nice as the trim color or garage door color.

or what about these?

you could redo the decking and railing with this color wood, paint the risers the same white as the trim. I gave you an orange door here, but you could do a coral or some other warm color

If going w/a slate blue gray siding color, the turquoise isn't going to work as well as a complimentary color

I am so late here, but seeing grey boulders and rocks in the back, I wonder about grey paint. Will the deck be a contrasting neutral at least?

Oh and these are our test swatches top is roycroft pewter, then cityscape and bottom is westchester gray… not in love with any of them…

And this is how we painted our previous coast house and we loved it, but it was a different style house. We had no issue with it feeling dreary.

The houses are so different, you can't compare how that color will look on your new house.

Prior house had a lot of angles and details that when the light hit from various angles, created shadows which added visual interest, depth, dimension and variation to the color. Also much more texture to the prior house which added interest and landscaping to soften the look with greenery and more shadows. The color becomes a monochromatic print vs a solid color.

Current house is basically a box on rocks. Granted, that ocean view is stunning, but the house lacks the interesting features of the prior one. On the new house, the paint is doing all the work by itself, one solid color. It needs to be interesting in itself until other features are added that will create visual interest, depth, etc. Grey isn't so interesting all by itself, especially if no light plays on the house to create interesting shadows. When light hits that house, it creates a flat plane, no curves, no shapes, just a flat plane of a slightly darker color.

Think about which rocks or shells you pick up off the beach. Is it the grey ones or the ones with interesting colors*?

*footnote for geologists, I know you folks see stuff in the grey ones us amateurs don't! 😁

No matter what color paint you use, the house will still be overpowered by the huge mass of tan/brown that completely surrounds the house. You need a professional landscape plan, not just a few pots here and there.

What about adding slim transom windows over the garage doors? Or in the garage doors? You already have that element next to the front door. Wooden accents and a deep green blue - or olive?

Then change the railing to black in a different style?

We understand your two limitations - one, the siding is new and painting is your best option. Two, your husband does. It want to fatten your trim and ruin the new siding. However, adding more wood detail to the front, similar in color to your back deck, does, it involve piercing your new siding. You railing and steps can be wood, as can your garage doors. And your front door. Adding the MCM style to the garage and front doors will be focal points and add the much-needed “interest” to your front.

This is what I've been trying to relay to you w/all of my photoshops and comments. Exactly what Tozmo, PRN and Red are saying

Your house is a box. I keep saying you need contrast and interest which is why I suggested doing something different around the garage doors. Being that it's the smallest portion to do, but it has a big front facing impact, I think it would be a good investment.

Didi you even inquire in how much it would cost?

dont forget the rock landscaping

Treat your home like a beach cottage. the added shake/shingle (and it doesn't have to be a wood. it can be anything) will add interest to the simple house design.

I also brought up the pathway and native plants to break up all that flat, massive amount of rocks. Right now, the home looks like it's on the moons surface.

get some native coastal plants and do a walkway down the middle (or curve it, offset, etc) just to break up that massive amount of hardscape

like these. they're low growing, native, drought tolerant.

get some cement pavers like these (or make your own if you're on a budget) and copy this, along w/the plantings.

Line your walkway w/edging strips and fill those w/landscape glass and plants

get driftwood from the beach, some larger rocks, shells and do a dry river bed

Plant a tree!