Deciding which colors for your home exterior can be a difficult and stressful process. You want your color scheme to be unique, but you don't want it to stand out from the natural look of the neighborhood. Finding the right mixture of colors that you and your family will be satisfied with is important because it will last for a long time, and you don't want to pay to have anything replaced or repainted.
To give you some help on where to begin here are a few steps that will help narrow down your selection.
1.) Start by identifying the colors that you like. It's important to start here because it's time consuming to go through all of the possible colors available and also it's your opinion that matters the most for your home. During this step don't worry so much as to the shading of the colors, just get a feel for what base colors you would like to include.
2.) Look at Your Neighborhood and Permanent Exterior. The next thing to understand is the overall style of your surrounding area. Is the style more contemporary or historic? Find the colors you chose that will fit in well with the style, yet still offer opportunities to be unique. Also observe the permanent exterior surrounding your home, such as any landscaping or natural stone/brick components. Generally red brick parts of your home will offer more flexibility in terms of color selection; gray brick parts of the home will be best matched with a similar neutral color.
3.) Determine the Color Shade - There are several things to consider when selecting the right shading. Darker shades may appear smaller as compared to lighter shades, and also darker shades collect more heat and can fade faster. Using a contrast between dark and light parts of your exterior can be great to make certain areas of your house stand out and appear larger. For a home with a large entryway you may want to consider contrasting the door, or other parts of the entryway, from the rest of the home exterior. This will draw more attention to it.
Here is a list of roof and siding color/shading combinations that tend to work well together, but there are still many combinations that will work.
House Color - Roof Color
Gray/Blue Dark - Gray/Black
Tan - Black/Gray/Dark Brown
White - Dark Color
Red/Green/Yellow - Black/Gray
4.) Finishing Touches. Once all of the main components are in place, it's time to consider any finishing touches to apply to the home. The focus now is on the trim and outer edges of the exterior. Using a different color/shade for the outside edges can accentuate the architectural layout of your home. This can look great for homes that really want to stand out while still fitting into the surrounding area.
Bryant Crock
For information about a Minneapolis Home Exterior Contractor contact All American Exteriors