Went from sunny yellow to bright blue. Here in the Pacific NW we enjoy bright colors to make up for the grey skies so much of the year.

This image shows a bit of the yellow on the front while the South side has gotten it's blue covering.

@Janell, Very pretty!

When we bought our house, it was off-white with gray trim. Very monotone. We like a Mediterranean design, so we chose a warm yellow and a chocolate brown that gave us a feeling of comfort and familiarity. The front door is a deep, warm blue.

That's a lot of garage! Is there a house attached?

We've been living in our 1925 house for almost one year. The exterior has been a bone of contention for our family - it just looked a little crazy! The board and batten was painted to resemble a Tudor (We live in a community filled with Tudors from the early 1900s) and the shutters were not original. We debate about the actual style of the house all the time - English Arts & Crafts, English Cottage, etc. We're just not sure. We are trying to stay true to the original features of the house, though.

We chose a gray with a dash of beige for the body and a very dark brown for the trim. The house has two different types of wood shake in addition to the board and batten.

We're still working on it -- as I type, my painter is outside. I'm posting a drawing done by the original owner/architect, then a before pic, and a current pic.

We are still in the process of painting our 1838 victorian... My husband thought it would only take 2 weeks! Needless to say removing ALL the old blistered paint, sanding, repairing damage, caulk, primer, and two coats of Benjamin Moore Aura paint.... It's been a month and we are still on the front gable! :-) It should be beautiful when it's done and worth all the work. I've attached a before picture, an in progress shot, and a photo of where I got the idea for the colors.

Inspiration shot

Our shotgun went from boring to bright!

Front door for me

I need to paint the outside of the house, but it'll have to wait until next year. Silly Canadian winters coming up...

Now I need to decide on a color.

We have a 1880's hip-roofed Victorian. Going to go from an icky no-colour-really light grey vinyl siding with standard ickier white aluminium trim to a cement-board plank in dark smoky blue (the colour of the Lake Ontario in the summer sun), Benjamin Moore 840 "Kensington". Trim: silver blue, BM 1619. And all the gingerbread in cream.
Wanted to ask if anyone has had experience with the prepainted cement-board product as well as with the paint-infused engineered wood plank siding? Some tell me to stay away from the former especially in our cold, wet geographical region.

Gobbit -post pictures!!! :-) I've never used the cement board siding myself but several people on Lake Huron here in Michigan have it on their homes and it seems to hold up fine to me. No color fade or splitting that I can tell.

@gobbitt .... we used pre painted cement-board plank (Hardieboard specifically) on the top half of our home (first home pictured in these comments) and have been very happy with it. We are in the greater Chicago area and have very cold winters. It's held up well and has been on the home for five years now.

When we first bought it, the house was a dull tan. Now, people stop and take pictures- although it's not everyone's cup of tea.

@Dawn Reeves: thank you. Your house looks very smart. Love the use of different exterior textures and materials!
Here are photos of my house: what it looks like now (yawn) and what I'd LIKE it to look like (yowzer!).
Love to hear if you all have any other ideas....

Here's a panoramic image of our newly painted house. One of the challenges was finding colors that worked with the prevalent use of brick on the front of the home.

@ Gobbitt- I love your house! The front porch details are beautiful!!! And I like your choice of those smokey blues for the final colors. I think it will give you the "wow" factor and still look sophisticated. I can just see red or pink roses in the front yard.

Monterey, your home is a car lover's dream! Beautiful ranch. They are truly my favorite.

@solraven, The original home owner was an auto repair shop owner. He installed a full size air compressor, steel workbench, and added the detached garage. It's 24 feet deep and includes a waiting room and workshop area totaling about 1300 sq ft.

Here's before and after pictures of my front porch...after we took off layers and layers of paint, we found details we had never noticed before. The house had always been painted with just a single paint color in some version of tan but I decided I wanted a green door to tie in with the green tile roof. The painter said "just trust me..."He was right and I ended up with a two color paint job which does a great job of highlighting the trim work.

@schulzc532: very kind but it's no painted lady. I'm trying to "tart it up" though with colour and trim.

Thank you for noticing the front porch! It used to also have a matching double storied side porch. Unfortunately, that was tied to the back of a pickup truck and pulled down the street by a disgruntled lover of a former lady owner. No idea what was done with it...

We will be trying to recreate some of this house's former looks over the next year or so.

Readers: can you recommend a roof tile colour to go with the blues please? Thanks.

@gobbitt - Love the story about the porch...sounds like a good redneck stunt to me!

What colors appeal to you? I see most roofs tending to either browns or grays and I prefer gray. I'm not a fan of the colored roofs like blue, green, and dark red because you are stuck with that color scheme forever because not many people repaint and reroof at the same time

For the last two roofs I had put on, I went with a mid toned grayish brown color called weathered wood. One of the attractions of that choice was that there are granules of many different colors so lots of choices for paint and trim colors. Depending on colors, that roof might appear to be more gray or more brown. I had wanted a medium gray, but my choices were either light gray or a charcoal gray. My favorite colors tend to be blues, greens and grays so t deliberately stayed away from the orange/tan/brown mix which is quite popular in my area. I had one of those put on a while back because I was keeping the existing cream and dark brown paint colors. It looked nice, but just didn't appeal to me

Hey@Linda - dark or light grey?

Where are you located? Unless you're in a really warm climate or a desert, I would go for the darker color before going too light. There's a house near me that just had a really light gray roof put on a dark red brick house...it just doesn't look "right' to my eye. My neighbor has a large 2 story Victorian done in a slightly brighter shade of blue than your inspiration picture and he has a dark charcoal gray roof. A strong color on the house needs a balanced color for the roof otherwise, the roof ends up looking like a huge awkward piece of trim.

My best advice for choosing a roof is the same as for choosing paint colors...drive around the neighborhood and see what catches your eye. Don't just look for what you like, also look for houses you don't like so you know what combinations to avoid. I'm often found wandering the neighborhood checking out architectural details and trying to determine why some combinations make one house appealing but similar features used in different ways just don't work on other houses

Linda, you're probably correct in that a darker grey would look better. What I would LOVE is a dark grey metal roof tile but that increases the cost of our reno by 75,000 dollars. Our summers are pretty hot, so I DO wonder about cooling costs, but, yes, I can see a dark grey going quite well with the smokey blues. We are near Lake Ontario in Ontario.

I am smack dab in the middle of doing it. Only have 2 weeks to finalzie colors before painters come. Here are the befores. I hate choosing colors. I'll agonize for weeks on this!

@dmu78 Amazing transformation. Would love to know what colors you used on the exterior.

@tsc1111, I'm happy to share the colors. However, I'm out of town and don't have access to them at th moment. I will have to get back to you later this week!

I must have to user IDs, one o lone and one on my iPad app. Dawn Reeves = dmu78!

Hi @dmu78 @Dawn Reeves sorry to bug you, was curious if you were back :) Sorry, snow is coming soon and I need to make some decisions!

@tsc1111, I'm stopping at Benjamin Moore today for samples. I will get the color values, one of the colors was custom.....

@Dawn Reeves Oh, don't go to all that trouble! I was interested in the siding color. Not a big deal. I can take the pic to my store. I just thought if you had it handy!

It wasn't trouble at all. I was there picking up samples for a client. All my purchases r in their Yates so it took less than a minute. The siding color is Benjamin Moore river gorge gray, 1537.

What can I do to make my home look updated? I would like southern traditional/modern ideas. Thank you.