House Colors

Well, the time of year is quickly approaching for us to paint the house. We have lived in this monster for 7+ years now and have yet to paint it - as anyone who has seen it will tell you - IT NEEDS IT!!!

The reason it's not painted isn't because we are lazy (for the most part) but because we just can't make up our minds what colors to go with.

House colors are very important. They make the first impression of your property. Therefore, the colors need to reflect the owner's taste but more importantly the time period and style of the house.

Our problem is that we'll pick a color scheme and then the next day see another one we like and change our minds. Usually I end up feeling like this:

The good new is that we THINK we have settled on at least two color schemes.

The first one is called the "Greys" and the other the "Tans & Buffs". The T&B colors are the ones we've been thinking about using for the longest time. However, for some reason we are being drawn to the greys. Perhaps grey tones would work better since the house is in the Neo-Classical style and grey tones are used heavily in this type of architecture.

Anyway, here are some samples.

This is the Flaval House in Oregon. It has got to be my favorite (and oldest) choice of colors.

It's hard to tell from the pic, but there are seven colors on this house. The primary ones are buff (body); faun (trim) and old gold (trim highlights).




This pic I found on the Internet, the colors are similar to those of the Flaval House.







This one takes some explaining. It is a section of the Getty Villa in Malibu CA. This museum is based on The Villa of the Papyri in the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum. In 79 A.D. the volcano Vesuvius buried this city as well as Pompeii. The Villa of the Papyri is a private house northwest of the township and sits half way up the slope of the volcano.

The Getty Villa is an awesome site - one I hope to visit at some point. There are many Internet sites for it as well as an official site. Below is a link to Flickr showing several wonderful pics of the place.

The Getty Villa

Next we have the 'greys'. They are not as warm as the 'tans & buffs', but the colors are stately, classic and evoke grandeur.

I tend to like the cooler, light greys. This one is highlighted with white and black.

This color scheme is our favorite in the grey group. It actually has highlights of gold, merlot and sage along with the white trim.

This last house is a bit dark but we think the colors make a bold statement. It also has merlot highlights, but also some in dark grey.

As you can tell, there are so many choices out there!!

If you are interested, I have included links to my Flickr sets showing these houses in more detail as well as a few others we've liked.

The ‘Greys’

The 'Tans & Buffs'

This last pic is perhaps the main color scheme we like in "the Greys".

It is more than likely THE color scheme we'll go with.

If YOU have a color scheme you think would look good on our house - PLEASE - let us know