Tips for Choosing External Paint Colours for Your Home
Repainting a house's exterior is transformational, whether you're radically changing the wall colours or repeating the current shade to make it look new. But choosing the right colours is a challenge. A house painter can advise you, as they will have seen combinations of all shades. But here are some tips to help.
Test the Sample Colours Outdoors
One of the trickiest aspects of choosing a colour is looking at a tiny square sample and trying to imagine what that will look like when covering an entire house. It's easier to accurately picture the result if you test the sample in the real world of your garden.
To do this, look at the sample in your house's outdoor light rather than relying on interior lighting. Use a large sample and hold it vertically to mimic the house wall. You can check how the colour appears in various outside lighting conditions to get the most authentic impression of how the sample would translate over a house.
Notice Undertones of Surrounding Elements
The external house walls you are painting are within the context of other colours, which you need to consider. The house may have elements you won't change, such as brickwork, roofing and powder-coated window frames. Other hardscaping features are also relevant, such as stone paving. You need to pick a colour to work with these fixed colours, also noticing their undertones.
Red bricks can have cool grey undertones and go perfectly with a greige paint shade. Bricks can also have warm brown undertones. Let your eye be the judge, and juxtapose a paint sample against brickwork or stone paving to see if it feels right.
Choosing Colours
To choose specific colours, think about the style of the house and the look you want to produce. You can paint a weatherboard house in pale hues such as soft blue with white trim for a beach vibe. You could choose a bold navy or charcoal to create a contemporary aesthetic. To simplify your choices, you could stick with one colour and paint the house in shades of white or in light and dark varieties of grey.
If you live in a heritage home, you can choose a traditional colour for that era. You can find various house styles and their conventional colours on various websites.
Colours also affect the energy efficiency of a house; pale surfaces reflect more solar heat than dark colours, which tend to absorb heat. If you live in a cold region, you could choose a darker shade for this reason, or conversely, paint your house white if you live in a hot climate.
Reach out to a local house painter to learn more.
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