Q: We’re going to paint our house next summer. I think we’ve decided on gray, but we can’t decide which gray! I like the color combination on your house. Is your siding vinyl or painted? If it’s painted, can you share the colors and where you got them? Thanks! I love your blog!
Missy
A: Thanks Missy, that’s always really nice to hear! Our siding is actually painted. It’s very good quality, insulated steel, but when we bought the house it was a 70s yellowy-green, with hideous aluminum awnings. I really like green, but I didn’t like how dated it made the house look:
We hired a painter, who spray-painted the siding, with excellent results. You would never even know that it’s painted. Many people don’t realize that steel or aluminum siding can be successfully painted, which is a shame, because it costs only a fraction of what it would cost to replace it with vinyl siding. The key to success is cleaning the siding thoroughly before painting, so the paint can adhere well. Our painter pressure-washed our siding with bleach water, and after 3 1/2 years, the finish still looks perfect! This article does a good job of explaining the process.
We had our formerly ugly buildings painted to match.
BEFORE:
AFTER:
When we were deciding what color to paint the house, we chose gray because we both like it, and we wanted to stand out in the sea of beige houses in our neighborhood. Don’t get me wrong, I think beige houses are very pretty, but in our area, it seems like every house is either beige, brown, or taupe. The lack of variety gets a bit tiresome.
Anyway, we settled on gray, but we too had trouble picking a shade. There are so many different shades of gray, it boggles the mind! We live on the top of a hill, and we get a lot of sun up here. We knew that if we picked a dark shade, it would fade very quickly, so we wanted a cool, pale shade of gray. Our painter uses Diamond Vogel paint, and we downloaded their free color visualizer software to help us decide.
Our final choices were White Palace for the main color, and Madison Grey for the building trim. We painted the shutters ourselves, and the cranberry color is from Ace Hardware. It’s called Fahrenheit.
I hope this helps. I know it’s really hard to choose paint colors from those little chips. I’d love to see a picture when you’re finished. Good luck!
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I think the colours you chose look great! I especially like how the sheds turned out- you wouldn’t think they were the same buildings!
The discussion of shades of grey makes me think of one of the houses we lived in while I was growing up. We painted it one summer, and the house was Cape Cod Grey with Lauren Blue trim. (And in the next house, my bedroom was painted Fresh Lemonade.) Strange, the things I remember from growing up.
Great tips! And, what a fantastic before & after!!!!
Thanks Heather! I’m not sure if we have Diamond Vogel here. I’ve never heard of them.
Missy
Missy, if you go to their web site, you can find out if they have a store in your area. They may be regional. Here’s the link:
http://www.diamondvogel.com/
If you can get hold of a chip, you can take it to a local paint store and have it matched.
You have so much space. It must be so great. I apinted my apt bright yellow now I regret it. I think a nice grey would have been much much better
The Diamond Vogel software allows you to view the RGB (red-green-blue) data for all of their colors. Neutral gray, by definition, is equal parts red, green and blue, and the higher the numbers, the paler the shade. The RGB data for our shade is:
212 red 212 green 213 blue
This is a pretty neutral shade, but the slightly higher blue value makes it a cooler gray. If you wanted a blue-gray or a green-gray, you would look for a shade with a higher concentration of those colors. True, neutral grays are very dull and boring. Grays with touches of blue, red, or green are much prettier to look at.