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Hi All-We are painting our 1925 dutch gambrel colonial and need help with paint color! We chose Benjamin Moore's Revere Pewter in hopes of a gray-ish beige color and it looks washed out and way too light in the sun. Also-our roof is light gray which complicates the decision. Trim will be white and shutters/door black. For the second coat we want something with more pigment. Any color recommendations from the Ben Moore wheel?? Maybe Sea Gull Gray? Thanks in advance for any advice-we are having a mini-meltdown over here. Photo is pre-paint. Holly
I like it. It is an appropraite color for the style and age of your house. Earth tones were common. Houses were supposed to blend into nature and not be an "eyesore"
What I think you need is some more trim/accent colors. Again subtle and tied into the base color. You do not want itlooking like a painted lady, but color can bring out trim and accents and make your house look truely stunning.
I am not saying your house will look bad darker, but it woudl look bad in red or peach or bright blue. If you want to go a bit darker, it should be fine. If you go too much darker, the house will look forboding and/or dreary.
Neat looking house. Are there original elements inside? You must be very pleased to live in that house.
I would suggest driving around and looking at houses. Find a house with a color you like. Then get color samples, go back to that house, and hold them up to the house to find the same color. (Walk up to house!)
I did that and was AMAZED at how different the color actually was as opposed to what I thought it was at the store!
Anyway colors look different in a store with their lighting as opposed to daylight. I guess that is why you can pick a color in a store, then paint a house, then it is not what you thought it would be.
I looked at the Revere Pewter from the wheel and it's a good color with white trim. But the pic you have posted shows a snow covered roof, not grey so from the pic, it's going to be hard to say. I would suggest not painting the door black. Look at a red or deep maroon. I avoid greys completely in any of my spec homes. If you go to color school (yeah, they actually have them) grey is a depressing color and turns people off except those that are depressed. Might look to something a lot brighter than the Pewter.
One idea is to just up the pigment in your color choice. You can ask the person mixing the color to double the pigment, for example. I did that on an interior color and it provided just the spark it needed, avoiding that washed out look it achieved at 1X strength. Also, remember there is white and there is WHITE. Your choice of white for the trim can also have an impact--warm whites vs cold whites. I can imagine a warmer version of white, kind of like buttermilk. And when you choose the black accent, you might back off the jet blck and go for a softer black.
Most homes of the style you have tend to have lighter paint schemes, so IMHO your first choice is on the right track. I agree that you don't want a painted lady. And if you paint them too dark, say olive and dark greens, they tend to look like Craftsman mutants.
One exception that I think looks cool is to paint the siding a deep cornflower blue (I think Ben Moore has one called this), with all trim including shutters white. It would go nicely with your gray roof, and you could even punch it up with a red door.
If you want to stick with the grey, paint the trim white and front door black. Or red!
Doors are almost always painted red on historic homes. OUr house goes back to 1836 with doors installed/added in 1836, 1850, 1868 and some later. All are red. Peel away the layers of paint and we discover the original color and all colors in between were - red. On our previous 1893 house in California many of the the doors were red and the ones that were not used to be. The 1910 house we had before that - red doors. Anyone know why? Was it supposed to mean hospitality like the southern pieapples or something?
Anyone know why? Was it supposed to mean hospitality like the southern pieapples or something?
Red is the warmest color on the color wheel. It's also the color of choice for extroverts and males. In many cultures it's considered the color of joy and happiness. Considering that our old culture came from many different countries and that the male was the head of the household, the doors would have been red as that's the entry into that particular mans world, especially if he was a business man. The red expressed his domination over his happy home.
I just repainted my rental and I used Sherwin Williams "Essential Grey". It looks pretty good with the white trim and black front door.
At first I tried "Popular Grey", but I didn't like it at all, too much on the brownish side.
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