You should be able to find very similar colors in the Benjamin Moore historic colors collection. If you bring in the color swatches, or your stirring sticks from mixing the paint, the staff can point you in the right direction.

I'll be at Vienna Paint on Thursday this week, if you have any time during the week. I work on a walk-in basis when I'm there. Jerry's Paint has consultants too, closer to you, and you could call to make an appointment, as I think their consultants prefer to take appointments.

Like your color combo. I had a thought seeing the pic of your whole house. The white clapboard on the right makes the house seem unbalanced/not-unified. With your new color scheme with the darker taupe/bark color, I think that will be improved, since the clapboards will be much closer to the value of the brick. I think it would also help to balance things out to tie colors all the way along the front; i.e. use trim color (lighter beige) on the right as well as using somewhere on front door area, as well as window shutters to left. If you keep all window trim white as well, I think it would help to unify the facade. Then if you put a pop of color on the front door, it would draw your eye right to the door (instead of to the right end of the house-where my eye goes at the moment)

So I painted the door this weekend but it needs another coat. I'll post soon. Question... my husband says that we have to paint the side of the house the same color that we'll paint the vinyl siding on the front. Is that true?

You have a nice, mid century home. Everyone's given you some great ideas. I hope you will modernize it, but still maintain its basic identity-it can be done. Good luck with your updates.

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get back on here. I've had two very sick little twincesses at home. They're feeling better now, and now I can get back to working on the house. Here is a picture of the West side of the house and the East side of the house. My husband scraped and put a coat of primer on. Still trying to figure out color combinations. Here is the door I painted. Needs another coat of paint but I love it so far.

Sorry to hear about your babies. Your front door and west wall look great! (Who needs sleep?) Well done so far!

Thank you. I work full time, so unfortunately between the babies, dog and work, I don't get much sleep at all. Everything I'm doing is done on pure adrenaline. So I walked the neighborhood this weekend and most of the houses like mine are so run down and old looking. I saw a few nice ones but nothing that caught my eye. I'm still tinkering with color ideas. I still like the 'gray' color scheme idea but now that I know we have siding all on one side, I'm not sure how to paint that. I mean horizontal and vertical siding? Oye!

Your upper west wall looks great painted white. Leave the trim and horizontal siding white (it looks like millwork) and paint the vertical siding your gray.
Hang in there Mama. Don't put too much pressure on yourselves to get it done right away. You've taken care of sealing exposed wood, the rest can come in time. Sounds like you already have one of the nicest homes on the block. Your front door is where all eyes will land now.

I would definitely move your main door out to where the storm door is now and eliminate the second door if you can. I can't imagine why the previous owners did that. It really isn't adding anything to your home. in fact I think that it detracts. I don't think you will be completely happy with your home as long as you have the funky entryway.

Perhaps you can borrow some space from the living room and create a niche of sorts (even if it just the area between the studs... The space people use for recessed medicine cabinets....)

That would give you space for coat hooks in your entryway and it wouldn't interfere with the space you need for the entryway.

if there is more space you could borrow from that side, great! Then you could put a closet or a full size storage cubbie
there.

Wow, thanks Catherine. I'm a new mom of twin girls, so the entryway is actually quite helpful when it's raining or cold out. And one of the parts of the house I like the most. I'm going to be adding a full view storm door and paint the inside to bring it up to date, but I don't have the desire to change anything else. This is being done on a very humble budget. Only the outside of the house is being updated. Mostly all of the classic "Virginian" ramblers have that style entryway. At least everyone that has a house just like mine in Fairfax County has it.

Maquire, thanks so much for your ideas. The horizontal siding is wood and mostly all of the original ramblers still or had in when they built. A lot of the homes in my neighborhood have taken it down and just put vinyl horizontal siding all the way up or brick. Which I love the all brick addition, but we have to play with what we have. :)

It will come together sweetie, don't worry. The door looks fab!

God bless you and your family. I am sorry, I didn't know that was the norm where you live. I am in the Midwest and we have many single story homes here but None with that type of entryway. It does make sense though. I grew up in a Victorian that had a double door entryway. It helps keep the cold air out!

Love what you did with the front door, and Maguire is right - give yourself credit for what you've accomplished, and don't put all that pressure on yourself. The time you can spend with your twins is precious, and when they are older, you will treasure the memories.
I'm in the middle of my daughter's imminent wedding (in 10 days), so I'm not on houzz quite as often right now. Thanks for the update. I'm enjoying sharing the journey with you.

The red door looks great. Just wondering, do you plan to replace your storm door eventually with the kind that is all one glass piece? It would be great to see that red door through an unobstructed view, and not through the kind of storm door that has a screen right in the middle of it.
I'm glad your little girls are better. I only had one son-who's now grown, but I remember how it was to worry when your little one is sick. Of course, you still worry even when they're "grown," but they seem so vulnerable when they are little-when they really actually are really resilient little people. :)

Aww, weddings!!!! I'm sure you're so busy right now. Best of luck with the wedding. I hope it's all your daughter has dreamed it to be. :)

Consider a wood screen that is horizontal in proportion near the entry perhaps covering the window area - the screen could be slatted to create texture and perhaps later be something that a vine like planting could grow on.

Lucinda, thank you! I do plan on replacing the storm door. Right now we're trying to decide what color. It's an Andersen 400 Series with Dual-Pane Insulating Glass. They come in White, Almond, Sandtone, Bronze, Forest Green, Terratone, Black and Wineberry. We are going to go with Brass hardware since the front door handles are brass and when you walk into the entryway, everything is brass (we've never changed it since moving in).

I'm glad my girls are feeling better too. One of them has problems with her immune system (frequent bouts of Pneumonia) so I typically disconnect from the world when my babies are not feeling well. Thanks.

I'm attaching some more pics. The first two are of the final outcome on the door. The last pic is again of the potential colors to paint the siding and trim. The more I look at it the more I don't like it. I can't see the entire right side of my house painted that dark. I thought it might look better with a green, not so much of the grayish/green. Does that make sense? Here are the greens I was looking into (all BM):

'Wethersfield Moss HC-110'
'Great Barrington Green HC-122'
'Louisburg Green HC-113'

I'm not sure what to do with the trim again now that I don't want to go so dark. My husband is also going to do some landscaping on that right side of the house. It's so overgrown. I use to have it so nice, but then the pregnancy and babies came. LOL. I would get out there and do it myself but I'm highly allergic to something over there and lands me in the ER every time I mess with it. Anyway, we decided to remove everything except the lilies and level it out and just put down pea gravel or some type of gravel with large stepping stones. It can also double as an extension of our nasty driveway. We don't have the funds to do asphalt or concrete. My husband knows the owner over at Rock, Sand and Stone Yard, and I'm praying we get some type of good deal for buying a lot. I've attached a pic of the right side of the house and yard also so you will see how I'm trying to tie all this in.

Thank you for your suggest Michael. I wish I could envision what you're talking about. Is there a picture or website you could direct me to that would help?

Here is the right side of the house with a coat of primer on it. That's A LOT of white!!!!

What about reversing your color scheme. Paint the horizontal siding the lighter color & your trim the darker color. Then on the end of the house, paint the upper (triangle) section the dark like the trim. I don't think the end needs to be all one color since it is 2 different types of material.

Look above at the pictures that Maguire & Sweet Caroline posted-way up at the top of this thread. There's 2 brick houses with dark gray trim. One has a cream siding on part of it & the other has a lighter gray siding around the door. The dark trim on both look great & one even has the eave area painted to match the dark trim.

Your door looks great painted red! I really like red doors.

Thank you for your suggestions. I have been playing around with virtually painting my house and the lighter just doesn't come across the way the more subtle green does. Not dismissing it though. This is such a stressful process.

I understand completely. I've been picking out colors for my entire interior. Thank goodness they make those little sample jars now. I have 5 definite no's & 5 yes's. It's a hard decision! I've spent hours staring at color swatches.

So I ventured out to Jerry's Paint and spoke with a color consultant and then followed up with Rick to see if my choice would be aesthetically pleasing. We chose a green with gray undertones instead of gray with green undertones. I will have to send the color name tomorrow as I totally forgot it. What do you think so far?

that color looks wonderful! It's really going to pop against the brick.

It looks great!

Okay, I believe the color is BM 2141-40 (creekside green). I love it so far and can't wait to get busy painting the rest. We've decided to keep the shutters and add a couple more on the East side facing windows. We'll use either BM 2134-10 (night horizon) or BM 2114-10 (bittersweet chocolate). Rick at BM said he would do all the trim, eaves, etc, in bright white to match the vinyl window colors. The color consultant also said to paint the new full view storm door in the night horizon or bittersweet chocolate. What do you think? My only issue at the end of all this will be what color paint the entryway. Ugh, the dreaded entryway that I love so much. Haha!

Keep the entryway white..

You might pick up your grout color, or a variation of it, in the walls in the entry way, since that would tie your exterior brick to the red door. 976 coastal fog comes to mind, but there are other similar colors which might also work.

Glad that someone at Jerry's was able to help you.

First of all...you are so impressive...twins, a full time job, taking care of a home and then painting too?? Wow! What a difference already...can't wait to see more. The green-gray warmed up the house ...love it!

Landscaping will work wonders. You don't want a row of identical plants. You want to mix it up with some perennials in between. You also want to pick your cultivar carefully. Some bloom longer than others. Also, you want to watch final height.

If the Cape Myrtle is going to get bigger, you might want to raise the canopy --- prune lower hanging branches and thin the number of branches. Read up on the tree, most trees can take a fair amount of hacking (you can cut lilacs to the ground and have they re-grow) but a few can't.

Okay, this was a weekend if painting. Here is the difference with just the first coat.

You picked a good weekend. (Since we're in the same area) We had great weather last weekend - and here comes the cold! Hope you are able to get a second coat on, but one will help, even if you have to wait till spring for the next coat. Don't paint if it isn't warm enough at night - your surface temperature won't get warm enough to allow the paint to dry properly, and the paint job will be ruined. But your first coat is looking good!

I am really a novice, but a penny here--on the triangular end of the house it would look more updated with the ends of trim painted & taped to extend green color to triangular end of trim. I'm not clear on this, paint the little "cone" shape at tip of gable. Paint trim white to extend white to top of overhang. I think that the white under the scalloped bottom would look better green rather than white also. It looks outdated with all the gingerbread scallops. Good work so far.

Hi Judie. The scalloped trim is original so it was on the house when we bought it nine years ago. So with it being a 1954, I would definitely say it's outdated. But we don't have a lot of money and wanted to make small affordable changes that would have an impact. We still have to paint the trim and shutters. As for the attic vent on the gable and the round trim pieces, I too said to paint them green and make the trim more asymmetrical. My husband didn't likely idea. So I need to get my mom over and tell him it needs to be painted. He listens to her. Haha!

M

Doesn't appear that it would require alot of paint. Take measurements, go to paint store and let them give you a quote for materials. Then paint it yourself.

Beverly - Take measurements of what?

Of the house so person at the the paint store can give you an estimate of the requied paint

We already painted the house.

britaebasham, I like the two-toned treatment, myself. I think its nice to tie it to the color of the body of the house. To my "eyeballs," its obvious that the corner of the eaves of the house is part of the trim, and I like how the white trim on the corner of the house has the unbroken line of "white" going right up to the trim on the end gable of the house, and then the paneling layered on top painted to match the house looks good. .

Front door paint job looks professional. Latest garden trend is use pretty vegetables as ornamentals,eg cut and come again lettuce as a border. Also you can eat it! In our town the council put multi coloured silver beet/ spinach (not sure which ) and lettuces in designs with the bedding annuals! It looked terrific.

I've seen ornamental kale used as a winter plant here.

There you are, see.

Wow, thanks. That sounds awesome. I will certainly check in to that. I really appreciate all the feedback. It's helped so much. It's hard being on such a thin budget but I think even changing some little things, like the color of the door, really make an impact. I love walking into my house now. :)

Just saw this thread....my! what a difference! It just goes to show that a little paint can make a big change. The ornamental kale referred to above would be beautiful in your front planter....there is a version that is creamy white centers and grayed green leaves. That would look terrific. A nursery generally would sell the big versions (about 12" or more across), so it wouldn't take too many to make a statement. If the kale lasts long enough in your area, you could infill with some bright red oversized outdoor ornaments for the holidays! One more thing I think would be great is a brand spanking new American flag. Good work. You are right to be proud!

They also pair the kale with pansies. Where I live we don't get much snow, but it very often gets cold enough that it will damage any plants that aren't evergreen, and both of these can take pretty low temps.
My grandmother loved pansies. She said they looked like they had little faces, and I've always thought they were pretty, too. When my son was a child, he made me a Mother's Day card with a "smiling" pansy on the front because I had told him what his great grandma had said. My grandmother definitely had a green thumb. She could grow anything.
Like paint, its amazing just how a couple of plants can brighten things up.

Try JoMax for the roof mildew. I know of people who used it on their roof and were very happy with the results. I have used Spray it and Forget It on walks and mildew on stucco and that worked very well but I don't know how that is on shingles. Your paint looks great. I am so glad you are not topping your crepe myrtle. You can limb it up if need be.

Wow, what a difference! A little paint and a little trimming, and now your house is the best on the block! :)