Paint Selection Sunday

June 2011

We are finally here, paint colors... the most exciting and overwhelming part of the entire process! At first, I was leaning towards a green house, but in Portland that is a pretty common color.  Josh and I both decided we wanted to paint the house blue.  I recently learned on This Old House that blue is the most popular house color in America besides white.  So, maybe not as original as we thought.... We knew we wanted a darker blue tone, darker colors make your house feel bigger rather than smaller (the opposite of the inside).  Also, since we reused our old siding and only scraped the old paint off we were left with 'alligatoring' which is a term for uneven scaly paint.  The brighter colors would highlight this fact.  The darker ones would help this blend in. Josh and I found we were both on the same page and quickly picked three choices and had a clear favorite.  For those wondering:  Our blue choices were Benjamin Moore: From top to bottom Van Deusen Blue, Lucerne, Buckland Blue. Then the trim decision came into play.

We knew we wanted to use a historic tri-color scheme for the house.  This means you have a body color for the house, a trim color, and a third color for both your doors and the interior sashes of your windows.  I have always wanted to have a maroon door.  I can't explain it, I just have always wanted one.  I love the way a Christmas wreath looks on it, I like the way it stands out to everyone who walks by.  Josh was willing to agree to the maroon, even though several of my red choices made him very nervous.  I was going for cranberry (not quite red).  Reds are hard and it took 4 choices and multiple swatches to pick the right one. 

The hardest part was the main trim color.  White trim is boring and we did not want the house to look like an American flag.  We were divided between going a pale green or a pale yellow color.  We really leaned towards the green for a while, however with the blue, the green and the red it was starting to look like a crayon box!  For a while Josh was looking at a scheme to have green trim and paint the window sashes a light yellow.  It was definitely brighter but I didn't think there was enough contrast between the two colors. We went back and forth with yellows, one was too yellow, one too orange, one seems kinda gold like.  In the end, we created some mock-ups that helped make the decision.  We spent an afternoon sipping drinks and repainting our mock up all the different choices.

By late afternoon we had a choice.  Now it was time to get it on the house!