I agree, I think your home style lends itself to a darker window frame...maybe a dark brown? I like the color of your house, but if you're looking to paint I think another natural color like a deep mossy green would be nice.

Get white for the inside and darker than sandtone for the outside. Dark bronze is nice and would go with a variety of exterior colors. White frames would look great with a gray bath - definitely not sandtone!

Thank you for the feedback, we had talked about a dark brown for the outside, however I definitely didn't want it on the inside. My only other concern was the cost of the two tones, on another brand it was $100 more per window, you can't tell from this angle, but we have a lot of windows... However I am going to look into it as I know in the long run the windows will add value, besides looking aesthetically pleasing.

Do you think there is any exterior color scheme where white on the outside would work?

Midtones or lighter would work with white, or any intensity of gray or blue (in my opinion). The color it is now would not work for instance, nor would darker green or red. But we're talking about a perfect situation here and money is an object! We painted our house trim a darker-than-midtone gray-green and we have white framed windows. If we were getting new windows, I would consider a darker frame - but white works for the inside. Taking budget into consideration, I think you have to prioritize where you need the perfect color.

Thank you for the advice, I will start looking into some colors that you mentioned for white, in case that's all that the budget allows for. I have seen some gray greens that I really like, but will need to figure out the right balance of tone I guess, depending on the window color. I like these colors, but worry they may be too light for the house. I guess I have time to make that decision. Thank you, this has helped!

Love the colors you have above. Here are a couple pics of my house - I notice we are the only house on our block that has dark trim around the white windows. Our front door hardware is antique bronze. Ignore the ladder - I'm living in a drum while they repair/replace roof and siding. The other homes have white trim, so it of course looks really good with white windows. The gray house is my neighbors - his gray is like your topmost gray.

my problem is not the windows, but painting the house. the windows would look great in any dark to go with the current home, so would the garage. But is that not a current wood treatment. My understanding is that they are designed to age well as is, and are not designed to be painted. if you paint it, i fear it could result in the same problem as stone and bricks that are painted.
You go from a nowork exterior to one that continuously needs
maintenance. You might even be deducting from the resale value. there
are other things that could change the image of your home with out these
drastic steps.

this has a porch against the grain. useful too.

Porch covering, again against grain

These are across windows
opp. way and look at this fence and the wall with the #s
put across opening to front door shades and gives that contrast.

These punched schemes are done in metal, concrete, or inexpensively in pvc

hope they help.

knitist I think the darker trim looks great with your white windows! I just saw another house with similar trim and white windows, and it was the first time I think that I've seen that and thought, wow, that looks good together! I do like your neighbor's gray and white as well, I'm partial to that color palette though.

havingfun thank you for the creative ideas for our exterior, I wouldn't have thought of a lot of those. We do have wood siding, however it has been stained. I am new to having a house much less, one with wood siding, but I had assumed that since it was stained wood, we could just stain it a different color, but it would have to be a solid stain I guess. You know typing it out makes me realize that I can't just change the stain color willy nilly, goodness, I am glad you brought up that point. I need to discuss that with the hubby and re-consider our options. As a semi-transparent wouldn't work as the old stain would alter the look of the new stain. And solid may do the same. Thanks for the feedback and ideas!

So we have decided to go with a dark bronze exterior window color and a white on the inside. It was a $24 difference, plus there is a special going on right now, that basically gave us the color upgrade for no extra charge, so we come to a happy compromise. Now I just need to figure out my options for staining the existing siding...but at least I know we can always just refresh the current stain if need be and it will now go with the new windows. Thanks again everyone!

Hey that is great, I am glad to know you can stain it safely, did not know if that was part of original safety finish or not.

Hey that's great it works with your budget! I think you'll have lots of options with the dual colors (I didn't even know that was possible, but it's a great feature). I love the current stain of your house - it's gorgeous!

We have a log home and did go darker with our stain. You do have to make sure that you have an extremely clean exterior and no discolorations since they will show through with the next stain. We've got wood windows that came with the log package. We're not crazy about them so we painted the exteriors over the past few months and it made a tremendous difference. We have Anderson doors here and Anderson wood windows at our cabin up north. Those up north have white exteriors, but, our siding is greenish-gray. We also have Anderson doors which have the white exterior but wood inside. After all this wood we were craving some color and even painted our trim since stain really doesn't stick well to regular trim boards.

Since this photo was taken I've painted the front doors a light blue to add some color. When spring rolls around I'm going to paint the garage doors. The neighbors all love it. Everyone's cabins are either brown, dark green, dark red, or white aluminum. Some of us are branching out. This one used to be a dark wood siding and the interior was the same - still is. I'm working on that, too.

If you want to experiment with color try the Sherwin Williams website where you upload a photo then change the colors. That's how I came up with my blue and I'm going to be adding a dark burnt orange to the log home on the front door and our porch swing on the back porch.

Your log cabin is beautiful and I think the darker stain really makes it pop! Thanks for the pictures and ideas, I will definitely have to play around with the Sherwin Williams site. I do better when I can "see" it vs just visualizing in my head, so that'll be very helpful!

I'd suggest instead of just aiming to choose a window color, you spend time finalizing the paint schemes for your whole house. Dark windows are the trend and have been. White is a standard window choice but it really wouldn't look the best in your house style as compared to other options in darker colors that will make a better impact aesthetically. I wouldn't choose tan/beige nor would I choose window colors before knowing my exterior color scheme.

Brandi Nash Hicks showed you the perfect color combo - Go w/it! Definitely, no white; Definitely, dark sash.

I agree on Brandi's photo as well. The window color is actually the same - or real close - color that I'm going to paint our new front door. I'm also thinking of painting our porch boards in a dark brownish-orange. I chose a color called Cayenne on the Sherwin-Williams site and am going to play with it again once I take some better photos to use. Today I'm painting the new trim around our new door since the weather is going to cooperate and not be too cold.

First of all - for the windows: go with windows that open, and open easily! I'm renting a place right now with casement windows that have that roller/winding handle: it hurts my thumb/hand, and so I don't open and close as often as I would like to. And I LOVE having fresh air in my home, so it's a deal breaker when looking at a home to buy or rent if the windows don't open.

Second, I owned a condo before this, and the replacement window color was a big issue! One guy was so determined to have dark/bronze colored window frames. And I was dead set against it. I think its a new "trend" and trends come and go, and are very expensive to un-do when the trend ends. Be trendy with pillows, or paint, not with things that cost 1,000's of dollars to un-do.

If you go with white for the frames, you can go in any direction you want with your exterior color. But if you go with some beigey color, you are stuck in mostly the beige family. Forever. And even if you choose to break away from beige exterior wall color, any color you choose will look not as interesting/crisp next to beige/brown/black window frames.

We got dark bronze. It goes with all colors. I personally don't like white windows.

White wouldn't create the rustic natural look you seem to prefer. There are metal aluminum windows that are a very dark gray, almost black, that would work great for your home. They come in the usual way to open window or can open from a side hinge. The place where we bought ours for the home we built before we opted to downsize went out of business when Lowes moved into town but I'd think they were still available anywhere that sold aluminum windows.

If you can find a stain that is close to that last color chip you posted - a baltic / teal blue - - I think that would be STRIKING with the bronze/ white windows....

I think your house looks beautiful in that color, and especially because the wood is stained with transparent stain, so you can see the wood grain itself. If you go with semi-transparent, you won't see that any more. It is almost like using paint. We bought a house with cedar siding and it was already stained with semi-transparent, in about the color of your house. I like the color but am so wishing I could see the beautiful natural cedar woodgrain! So I encourage you to consider whether that is important to you when deciding whether to use semi-transparent in order to change the color.

Lovely house! Congratulations on your window decision too, and on getting a good price!!

Why don't you try the delux app that allows you to take pictures of your home and try out colors before you paint, we have been trying to match a color for ages and twenty minutes with this app and I finally found the colors name at last, it can give you some great ideas....good luck with your dilemma

laragazza thank you for your thoughts on semi-transparent stain. I guess I thought it would still show the grain thru it, since it wasn't solid, I will have to give that some more consideration as I do like being able to see the wood grain.

alex2zack I hadn't heard about the dulux app before you mentioned it, so thank you I will definitely try that out!

Shoeffeine - the dark windows with the white interiors are definitely the right choice for your home's contemporary lodge style. Your green roof gives the house some punch but does limit your color choices somewhat. You may not be brave enough for a red stain on the house, but it would evoke barn and be a little more traditional in result than any of the other "color" choices. I'd also like to see your front door match the roof and the garage door match the house when you are done with your new colors. Lots of good choices . .

You've identified the issues...but one more thing to think about is your interior trim against the new windows. You mentioned that you have natural wood trim. If you are planning to paint the trim, white is probably the way to go with the windows. You can make white work on the outside with either paint or stain. If you are planning on keeping your natural wood trim you might get a sample of the sandtone color and hold it up against your wood trim. I've found the sandtone difficult to work with in the past but I loathe the look of natural trim around white vinyl or fiberglass windows. I feel that the natural trim makes the windows look very plastic. You could definitely make the sandtone work on the outside with either paint or stain and you can definitely re-stain but the existing underlying stain will shift the new colors slightly so you may need to play with it some. Stained wood looks beautiful and requires more maintenance than a good paint job. I might consider painting most of the house and keeping some accent areas of natural wood in protected areas if maintenance is a concern for you. I that case you need to think about how the colors work with two exterior finishes and your interiors :)

If the cost of two tone windows is prohibitive and you are willing to paint, you could consider painting the interior a color that works for each room and just pick the window color that works best with the exterior finishes. I agree that painting the exterior would be a mistake and lead to a lifetime of increased maintenance.

You might see if you could get a quick color consultation from a local architect or designer to help you set a direction for all your future projects. I know I'm biased but I think the money for an hour or two of professional help is always money well spent. And you want them to come to your house and see everything in context not just in pictures.

Good luck!

I hate white windows. I'd go with something dark.

Keep the sandstone as it goes with so many options in terms of color. Drawing attention to the random pattern of windows on your home with white frames is going to be a future disaster. This is never going to be a Nantucket symmetrical cottage. It will always be a woodlands contemporary.