Finding The Right Colour for Your House Exterior

When you want to smarten up the exterior of your home, one of the fastest and most effective ways to do this is by using outdoor paint.No matter whether you want to spruce up your tired looking exterior, or you are planning to sell your home and ...

When you want to smarten up the exterior of your home, one of the fastest and most effective ways to do this is by using outdoor paint.

No matter whether you want to spruce up your tired looking exterior, or you are planning to sell your home and want to add some kerb appeal to attract potential buyers, let's take a look at some top tips to find the perfect shade of exterior paint.

The first thing you should consider when choosing your paint is your internal décor. It would be best if you treated the exterior of your house in the same way as your interior.

Gather some paint colour samples and test them out. Look at how different the shade can look in the daylight. They can seem far paler outdoors in bright sunshine than inside a DIY store. You may need to go a couple of shaded darker than you think for your exterior paint.

Are you painting woodwork or brickwork?

While most homeowners will only be concerned with painting their exterior woodwork, for those homeowners with pebbledash or another exterior coating over the brickwork, it can be a far more daunting task to choose a color for their whole exterior.

Look at your neighbour's houses that have the same style of home as you. Take a walk around your neighbourhood and see if you can find a shade that you really like. We are sure that a knock on the door and a pleasant enquiry and complement about the paint shade will be welcome.

This can be the same for exterior woodwork too. See what contrasting colours look good on your neighbour's houses and see if you match this with some colour swatches from the DIY store.

Be influenced by your brickwork

If you are lucky enough to have a house built with golden stone or pale colour bricks, then a period green colour such as a shade of sage green or lichen can look spectacular against this colour brickwork.

If your house is made with dark bricks, then a full-on off black or blue-black gloss can be a brilliant choice for a wooden front door. (Think of No10 Downing Street). Gloss black paintwork can also look good if your external property has a black railing or walls with black railing inserts.

Add a bit of period style

If you have a period property or a new period-style house, then it can pay to go with traditional period colours for the exterior paintwork. For example, back in Georgian times, popular colours included chocolate brown and natural, earthy shades of green and brown.

You can consult with a paint specialist to discover more about the popular shades of paint during the time your house was built or the period your new house is styled after. A paint specialist may develop a perfect shade for your exterior woodwork that you wouldn't see on display in a DIY store.

They can even advise about mixing modern exterior paint shades to get the shade you are looking for. This includes more contemporary shades for modern houses that may lack a bit of style. An excellent choice for a new-build house with little external character could be a Graphite Grey, Lead Gray, or a pale pearl grey to give a softer edge to your paintwork.

Remember that you don't need to stick to white paintwork because every house around you has it. You can give your home tremendous kerb appeal by sprucing up your exterior paint.

However, if you are planning to sell up and move on, consider what will look good to prospective buyers before committing to a colour, especially if it is a rather bold choice!

If you are looking to sell locally and need advice, please do get in touch with our team.

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