K-Style or ogee gutters can carry a larger volume of water than an equivalent half round. (Imagine a square cross section vs half a circle of the same diameter.) I think they are the same for ice or snow and efficiency is only important in very heavy rain storms.

With that said a half round is more architecturally correct especially for your house which doesn't have a formal cornice. The K-style is designed to replace the cyma (part of the cornice).

We have a white board and batten house with gray metal roofing. Our architect recommended that the gutters match the roofing. As we could not get half-round in our roofing color, the architect selected k-style gutters matching the roof. Downspouts are white. [edited, I shouldn't have said painted white, I don't know whether they just came that way or whether they were painted to match the house.]

Thanks to you both! Oaktown, would it be possible to see a photo of your gutters? I didn't think about painting the downspouts white... would love to see what that looks like.

This is probably a stupid question but... how do you specify gutters that match your roof? Are they an exact match... or just similar in color?

Interrupt at the front door. Half-round in the roofing color. Round downspouts in the roofing color.

None of these is our house, but these illustrate some ideas.

This is what dadereni is suggesting (matching half-round gutters and downspouts), and what we would have done if the option had been available:

Menlo Oaks Residence · More Info

White half-rounds and downspouts:

Circa 1700 · More Info

Box gutter, white downspouts:

Porch House · More Info

Contemporary Ranch style Home · More Info

On our house, the gutters do actually match the roof color, I don't know the details. Architect chose that rather than having half-rounds painted on site.

Thanks again to both of you. I'm leaning toward going with ogee style, gutter matching roof and downspouts matching house. The main reason for choosing the ogee style is that it is less expensive. Just don't know how much difference that will make to the look of the front of the house: how far down the gutter will come, will it hide the rafter tails completely and if so, whether white gutter might look better against white rafter tails. Heavy sigh... so many decisions... lol.

On our house the roof, gutters and fascia are all the same color.

Thanks, dekeoboe! Any chance you could post a photo, just of the roof eave?

Also, another question for those whose architect specified that the gutters match the metal roof: Do you know the reasoning behind that? Or your own thoughts in choosing that option?

Thank you - that really helps. Beautiful home, by the way.

Matching the roof gives a substantiality to the roof An accent ''stripe'' of a different color can work too, if the rest of the house uses the same trim color for it to blend with. It just leaves the leading edge of a metal roof lookig knife thin. Which it is. Which is why I prefer it to match the roof.

@hjs can I ask what you ended up doing? Doing a modern farmhouse and deliberating btw K-Style and half round. We tend to get big monsoonal summer rainstorms, so half thinking k-style, if it works with our fascia detail. Such a hard decision!!!