Yes, thank you, we will. The board will be painted whatever color the house ends up. That white structure is a little entry porch to our back yard. It does have stairs. We need to add the skirting . We also plan on building out something to cover the meter.

I like the red too. Lots of personality.

In spite of siding color you choose I would go with the same color for window trim.

Your house has personality and it will look its best with just a bit of help. For the mudroom side, add the steps, move the planter to the right of the steps and have just some short plants in it. As well as add some grasses or short plants all the way around at the base of mudroom windows and on the right of the planter. See the transformation:

No need to paint anything here

For the driveway side, I would paint the siding on the small enclosure on the left, either red like the house or my favourite a grey like the roof. Then add two potted cedars or other columnar tree on either side of the door, and some greenery on or in front of the retaining wall. Look at the transformation below

Removing the door screen will help too. And done!

Thank you to all! I'm flummoxed by the red love. Any votes for adding black shutters with the red?

@LilDesignWorks the driveway side is the mudroom side, behind those french doors. There's 6' of decking in front of those french doors now. I can see something tall in two pots by the french doors, thank you!

Here is the house under construction when we had just started the red. I got scared and freaked about white when I saw it tyveked, lol.

Wondering about wrapping the new west side porch all the way across the house front? Wondering about black shutters on a barndoor track for top windows?

I'd change the red ASAP but I seem to be in the minority lol. A deep green or navy blue with white trim would look awesome.

Ha, @itsourcasa. DD said deep blue, as well. Our windows generally just have top trim (long story), tho. Sigh.

Thoughts??

Deep dark blue or a deep gray would be my choice, to highlight the greenery.

SW Ibis White

SW Roycroft Bronze Green

SW Charcoal Blue

SW Urbane Bronze

Ohhh the roycroft or charcoal above!!! Nice!

@chinacatpeekin, love your name. Thank you for that thought: the house setting from our barn a couple years ago:

@Melissa R, oh my gosh, thank you for all that work! I've never seen it pale before (my own "color me like one of your french girls" attempt notwithstanding). I'm wondering if the red windows are better with a white than with the darks? If we did white and add shutters, that Charcoal Blue could be a wowser for them, I think.

@itsourcasa, I really like that Charcoal Blue. Would you add white shutters?

The house is so tall. Would a dark color make it look like a creepy haunted house?

I don't like the tall and dark combo either. And red is the color of alarm. But there is something to be said for coordinating with the barn.

no shutters! Shutters are "yesterday". I like the darker colors more than the white

SW Ibis White

SW Charcoal Blue

SW Roycroft Bronze Green

SW Urbane Bronze

Dark shutters that don't actually close over the windows never did have a time where they were a good idea.

Notice in these last pictures that every color possibility except the white makes the house appear to be trying to disappear into the background. To hide. Creating a contradiction with the fact that it is otherwise undeniably the dominant visual element in the scene, the focal point.

I don't know that something as starkly contrasting as the white is the best option either, but there are lots of shades between available.

I wouldn't call shutters "yesterday". In some instances they are very appropriate. Your lovely house, however, doesn't appear to have any windows suitable for shutters. ( I'm also a fan of the red! )

I love homes that don't fit the norm.

To clarify, we were thinking of shutters that would be able to close over the very top double-hung windows. It's not clear from the photos but there is 40" between the roofline and window edge, on each side of those windows.

@nick emb, that's interesting. We have a small woodshed tucked into the edge of the woods west of the house and we painted it dark gray to make it disappear.

We also have a red hayshed to the south of the red barn. DH refers to us as "the compound". Around here, most of the houses are a different color than the working buildings.

@Melissa R, thank you again. That's so helpful.

I love your red house, especially in its’ setting. It wouldn’t work on my street but there...wow. I would paint it all red with black/charcoal in the gable. It is very okay to be different and a little rowdy!

Amusement parks, casinos and roadside attractions can be fun but are these where most of us would want to live? It's one thing for an object viewed in isolation to be entertaining and quite another for something that is part of a combination, a setting to go well with the rest of it.

Thank you all. It doesn't seem like anyone thinks white is the color.

@lizziesma, We had first repainted the gable Tobacco, a dark gray green. For some reason, I didn't like the darker gable. But your thought to bring some black higher on the facade might be why I was wondering about shutters.

Can I get help with the question of whether we should extend the porch all the way across the front?

I like white. It pops. I do not like the green at all. I agree with the comment that the dark colors make the house disappear. I like the red better than any of the dark suggestions

What if you took your red a couple shades darker, like a chestnut colour. You'd still have a red "vibe" but it would be a bit more subdued. In the below picture I left the hue allow but adjusted the saturation and lightness downwards.

I adjusted the gable the same amount as the rest of the red so it looks grey instead of chestnut. But if I were painting it for real, I'd either paint the gable the colour of your porch roof or the same colour as the rest of the house.

@BeverlyFLADeziner, thank you for all the red photos. I'm definitely starting to waver.

@User, I was thinking of a subdued white, like the Ibis Melissa's photo shows. All the farmhouses in this area are white, and except in winter, they do pop against their backgrounds and I also think those pops are very attractive against the greenery.

@Jennifer K, that's an interesting thought. When we built it, we did have it deeper. Unfortunately, it had blue undertones and it started to look really maroon as it aged. It wasn't just my imagination. DD was asked once if her parents lived in "the maroon house." Not the look we were aiming for, lol.

If anyone is still out there, I would love some feedback on this idea. Here is an inspo house we have always loved:

Water's Edge, Lake Chatuge · More Info

• What if we extend the porch across the front with a cedar header and cedar posts in these ^^^ shades?
• What if we add stone to the house bottom?
• What if we change the trim board for our red ganged windows to cedar?
• What if we add a darker wood door? (The Azek porch floor we added on the driveway side of the house is this color)

This is also darker, as @Jennifer K suggested : Carriage Door

Or Roycroft Copper Red

I like the Copper red a lot. I could see that working for you. But tell your paint professional about the maroon mess so you can find out how that colour tends to fade ahead of time.

I wouldn't do shutters but if you go with a charcoal or dark blue siding color I'd add chunky white trim around the windows and paint the red window frames white too.

@itsourcasa, when the house was designed and sited, it was partly influenced by these houses, a few hours from us, designed by a really talented architect, as was ours. I got scared of the starkness and went to red.

In our rural area, houses have been white, the farm outbuildings are red.

Shutters, even attached like these, or on a track, would look silly?

Your style of house and shutters dont go together:)

Don't think of them as shutters. Think of them as the cover for the hay mow. 😸

I was scrolling the Houzz front page and saw this new construction home. This is the "not-shutters" shutter idea we're thinking of for our top window. This is in Ohio - lovely.

Brand Rd. | New Construction · More Info

I also realized that the only barns around here that are dark gray or brown are the abandoned barns.

@Embothrium, You wrote: "I don't know that something as starkly contrasting as the white is the best option either, but there are lots of shades between available."

We've been mulling beige, aiming for this:

Custom Residence Smyrna GA · More Info

I'm afraid of picking a paint that puts us into baby p##p land, or suburban bland. Can I ask your reaction to this general color idea and any other thoughts?

Nice a light shade of yellow. I like it.

If anyone is still out there, we are waiting on our painter who says end of the month.

You can see a couple "Samplize" still stuck to the front. We settled on Westhighland White, which is not one of the Samplize samples. I believe it's the color of the white house, below.

I tried to repost the first photo to save scrolling, but couldn't. As you can see, the assymetrical screened porch is gone (except for the frame pieces DH will use to prop the scaffolding). Once the house is painted, we'll add the open porch, out deeper on the left side and all the way across the front (also deeper).

If anyone wants to opine on how to handle the corner of the house, currently being held up by that red post, jump in. We'll have four white 8 x 8 posts across the porch front. We're discussing whether that corner should be a 10 x 10 post or something that resembles more of an actual corner, as in this white house.

Palmetto Bluff Duck Crossing Cottage · More Info

I think the corner would look spindly if you left it as is. Have you asked your architect for an opinion or for guidance regarding proportion?

@Anna, agree it looks spindly as is. Our architect specified that dimension when we built in 2005, and we just always left it because it was hidden inside a screened porch. We'll probably try to figure out what looks best after the 8" square porch posts are up.

I actually don't think you need to do anything to that post. Why take up space if you don't have to? I think once you rebuild the porch it will be fine. Wait and see.

Westhighland White will be very pretty.

I saved that combo, @houssaon when I found it! Eyeing the blue for the door. We had tried Natural Tan for the siding but it looked awfully beige.

Agree, we will wait until porch columns are up. The way things are going, that corner may turn out to be a spring project, anyway.

Appreciate your thoughts!

The color looks great!

I love it!

We had a cement drive poured, which helped tremendously

Wow it looks beautiful! I happened upon your post and scrolled all the way through. Looks gorgeous! please show us a photo of if setting back from the road when you can. Great job!

@Twillie, that is so nice of you to take the time to comment. It made my evening, thank you! Painting a house a new color is really terrifying. Here is a photo from the same spot as the earlier distance shot and a shot with one of my horses, just because. Ha! Just noticed he photobombed the first photo.