Selecting a House Color

We have a colorful neighborhood and one of the reasons for all of the color is our neighborhood.  As the neighborhood was being built, the neighborhood required the builders to vary the colors.  They worked with the local paint store to put together a palette of arts & crafts colors to help make color selections easier for the homeowners.

To help me make my selections my husband and spent a lot of time driving through neighborhoods in the Atlanta area.  I settled on a blue/grey color with white trim, and just next to me is a green house trimmed with beige.  On the other side of the green house is one that is barn red.  My other next door neighbor is going to paint her house and she's selected a yellow ochre color.  She and her husband actually tested several shades on large areas of her siding to be sure they achieved the desired colors. My neighbor is from Sicily and she was trying to capture the color of an Italian villa.

It is so difficult to select the right color and it can be costly if you make a bad selection but the one thing that helped me was to be able to see houses that featured the color combinations I was considering. It is so much easier to visualize the final product when you have the chance to actually see color on a large scale.  The paint store is a great resource too and they can offer lots of tips, such as select three colors to help create interest.  I had a really hard time with this advice and opted instead for two colors with stained wood serving as the accent color. One of the things I learned not to do is to ask the advice of your neighbors.  Our Italian neighbor who tested colors on her house first made the mistake of asking a few neighbors their opinions and a few of the comments hurt her feelings.  Luckily she followed her own judgment and the house is turned out beautiful.

I hope you will take a few minutes to get inspired and see some of the color that has been used in my neighborhood.

Shades of blue

and yellow 

and purple,

beige and even orange!  Shades of green and brown are really popular too. 

One of the houses near me just sold and I'm really excited.  The new owner to be said he's thinking of painted his house a dark purple with gray and white trim.  It sounded luscious to me.  

My first blog stop in the morning is typically Marie Arden Pink Living  and it started me thinking.  The one color missing from our neighborhood color palette is




PINK!!!