Exterior Paint Color - Help!

13 years ago

We just bought our home and need to badly repaint the outside. The bottom is stucco and the top is a wood siding. I'd like to do something dark on the bottom, rock the pilons holding up the porch and paint the top half of the house a lighter color. I'm not sure what to do with the porch.

Ideas? We live in Western NC in a mountain community and our yard is very natural (ie lots of pine forest), so we'd like something that fits into the landscape surrounding us. In the future we may end up putting rock over the stucco, but for now I think we just want to paint it.

We are planning on also taking out the garage door and putting in some french doors to the garage area. The previous owners finished the basement and took a large portion of the garage so now a car will not fit into it.

I'm also looking for ideas on how to add some character to our house. It's fairly simple now, but we are open to adding on some touches that would spruce it up a bit.

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Karen Tiede Studio

13 years ago

1. My sister installed a steel spiral staircase to solve a similar problem. She loses far fewer square feet to the stairs than any other option.
2. I like any of the power-darks in the mountains; red, forest green, purple, dark blue. They'll all disappear into the woods. Look at the colors that Sweet Gum (liquidambar) turns in the fall. Let the ones that are really bright be your accents.

I painted a chain link fence dark blue (the act of painting was a whole 'nother story...) and it completely disappears.

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Comments (9)

olldcan
13 years ago
I think your spot on in keeping the colours close to it's surroundings. I like the colour of the garage door. Basically a greyish/green or taupe/charcoal combo would be nice.
Balcony railings look heavy and I'm sure if you were keeping them you'd paint them to match the new colour scheme, glass panels are an option as well. Beefing up the base of the pillars with rock is a great idea. Any rock combo in grey/black/taupe/brown will not limit you in your other choices. I would place the staircase in a different location and re-design it. The garage side joist is screaming for arbour adding this will give the side of the house some dimension.
What colour is your roof?
wrugart
13 years ago
I think if you rock the pilons it would be over wiling. And have you thought of moving the stairs over to come down the side of the house.
Wayne
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olldcan
13 years ago
A 1/2 tapered stone column wouldn't overwhelm this home. Here's 4 pics,check out the different pillars on these homes. If your re-doing the balcony, with the right materials you can eliminate some of the "pilons".home[houzz=
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Rachel Brown
Original Author
13 years ago
Our roof is black - we just got it redone so we're not planning on changing that for a while.

We looked into moving the stairs when we first put an offer on the home, but due to the fact that nowhere on our lot (except where our foundation is) is level and most of what is underneath it is rock it would be way out of our price range at this point.

I'm planning on doing some type of arbor trellis over the garage door this spring/summer so hopefully that would put some interest onto that side of the house.

I definitely want to do some sort of rock because I feel like the house looks so plain it needs something to add character to it.

Thanks so much for all of the great ideas so far!
olldcan
13 years ago
Oh good, I was hoping you'd say black :)
You could do a switch back staircase on the right side of the deck so it ends in the same place as it is now
houssaon
13 years ago
I would do a dark gray on the bottom and a lighter gray on the top, off-white on the band and the rest of the trim and dark brown on the railings and posts. You could also do a mossy green in two shades, with a taupe trim and dark brown for the railings and posts.
spartucus
13 years ago
I like stone on bottom and neutral paint above, keep trim cream. You could only put the stone on part where pp see the most (front and back) and keep rest wood. We did that with house once and it looked great. There are stone and cement blend products less costly than all stone. Hanging bskets of ferns all the same kind good for top. Not sure how much sun lower area gets. I like white tall back rockers in a row with a house like this, some on top and bottom. Plant some low lite greenery below, like mostly hosta and ferns. Taupe paint, cream trim. If you need to create a floor for lower area use irregular flagstone and plant grass seed in between. Leave enough room for the grass. You just trim with a little electric trimmer and it looks amazing.
Rachel Brown
Original Author
13 years ago
Oh i like the idea of using the flagstone and grass for below - great tip!

At this point we're looking into doing stone on the big pillars in front, a dark brown on the bottom stucco and a taupe on top with cream trim.