Choosing Exterior Colors

Making design choices is both fun and torture. 50SOG as it applies to house-building?

There are a two Parade of Homes events in the Raleigh area each year. They are a blast for "homees" like us. Get it? Foodees/ies, homees, homies? Anyway, one area builder caught our eye because they often do white/cream/barely-there pastel palettes. Amid the sea of earth-tones and grays around here, those houses always stand out.
Here's one of their homes, and it served in many ways as our inspiration house. The color in the picture below is not accurate for the shutters, those were a more of a putty color.

Parade of Homes © Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

So, when it came time to pick the siding and trim colors for Quince Cottage, we were torn between two options. One we knew would look good (dark gray body, white trim, "color tbd" for shutters and door) OR what we'd fallen in love with during the home tours. Choice A was safe, and reminded us of New England, our motherland, so to speak. Choice B was riskier (would it look washed out, bland, too yellow, too beige?), but also more Southern, which was what we really wanted.

© Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

In case you're curious, the siding color is Classic Sand with White Birch trim, and the shutters and doors will be Sherwin Williams Dutch Tile Blue (shown below).

While attempting to make up our collective mind, we talked about it endlessly, and we played with some online design tools. The problem is that online sample homes aren't exactly like the one we were building, and in the case of this one, there was no option for shutters. This made us scratch our heads, but anyway, here's an example of what we created to get an inkling of how our color scheme might look.

Homeplay.com Design 

Between the disgusting weather we had in February and missing windows that had to be installed before siding could begin, nothing much happened on the outside of our house after it got wrapped.
Last time we showed you Quince Cottage, this is what it looked like.

© Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

BUT this past week it underwent a MAJOR transformation and here's what it looked like yesterday! The first two shots were taken in the morning, after we walked Buster and Daisy.

Gratuitous Cute Doggie Pic © Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

Ta-daaaaa...

© Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

© Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

© Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

Then we went back in the afternoon and look! Shutters! They're only primed, but since Dutch Tile Blue isn't far off from this color, we have a really good idea of how Quince Cottage will ultimately look.

© Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

We're SO pleased! It looks soft and pretty and has a nice Southern vibe. Our last three homes have been Craftsman style and though we love that look a lot, we wanted to mix things up with this house. While there are still Craftsman elements, this light palette is really fresh. Nothing drab about it!
Shout out to Capitol City Homes for letting clients customize with door/shutter color, choices of clapboard, shingle and board & batten and having a great crew hard at work on our house!

We'd love to hear about your home's exterior color scheme. How did you choose the colors? If you had no choice, what would you have done differently?

Quince Cottage believes a standard subdivision house can be transformed into a beautiful home that reflects the unique taste and personality of its owner. In our own place, rustic and opulent rub shoulders. Think gilded mirror against a ship-lap wall.