Outside, Consider Painting Outside the Lines

All we wanted was a new front door for our Cape Cod home. But one thing generally leads to another with even the smallest home improvement project. Before you know it, we were considering redoing the entire exterior color scheme of the house.

I've never really liked the pairing of our gray siding with red shutters. So before trying to add a new door to the mix, I wanted to consider other possibilities. Sure enough, I found some home makeover tools on the Internet to indulge myself.

The first one that I stumbled upon was Virtual Home Makeover from Alcoa, http://www.alcoahomexteriors.com/Site/DesignCenter/Landing.aspx. The site lets you pick from a photo gallery of home styles and find one similar to yours. You can experiment with changing the color of the shutters and siding, or you can try out an entirely different type of cladding -- no surprise from the site of one of the leading manufacturers of vinyl and aluminum siding.

Still, it didn't help me with choosing a door. For that I tried CertainTeed's ColorView online visualization tool, http://www.certainteed.com/CertainTeed/Homeowner/Homeowner/Siding/Visualize/colorview.

CertainTeed, another major manufacturer of building materials, provides consumers with a drawing of a variety of home types, along with a choice of siding, shutters, doors and roof shingles. You can manipulate the colors of each, enabling you to make mistakes on a computer screen rather than at curbside for the whole neighborhood to see.

If you don't trust yourself to make the right choice, you can turn to Web-based consultants, with fees ranging from several hundred dollars to more than $1,000. An online search for "paint color consultants" will turn up numerous businesses and individuals offering these services. These can be particularly useful for homes that require more than just a few colors.

For historic houses, Paul K. Williams, owner of District-based architectural consulting firm Kelsey & Associates, recommends the Color People, a Denver-based company that provides color advice appropriate for specific architectural styles. "They're great for 10-color combinations," Williams says.

He also recommends the lower-tech option of having a rendering artist create a line drawing of your home. You can copy it as many times as you want, and then use colored pencils to fill in the architectural details. "You can explore like a kid painting all the different combinations," he says.

As an adviser on historic building renovations, Williams frequently encounters homeowners who want to restore their house to its original colors. But paint analysis isn't always worth the effort. "Historically, colors weren't very attractive," he says. "They're often muddy brown or muddy green. People spend a lot of money and go through a lot of trouble to find out something they don't like anyway."

With that in mind, he frequently encourages clients to choose colors that appeal to them aesthetically, "which is odd for a historian," he said. "But you should surround yourself with the colors you like. Don't worry about what your neighbors think."

Keep in mind that light colors tend to make a home look bigger, while dark colors have the opposite effect. A monochromatic color scheme (one that uses slightly varying shades of the same color) unifies and simplifies the appearance of your house, while contrasting light and dark colors add interest and emphasis.

If you're painting, it's helpful to buy small quantities of paint and test them the same way you would indoors. Paint patches at least two feet square directly on the exterior surface and leave them up for about a week so you can view the color in different light and weather conditions. "Don't be afraid of making a patchwork quilt on your house," Williams advises. "Better you do that than buy a couple hundred gallons of paint."

Consider including your window frames in your overall plan, even if they are made of vinyl. Williams says many homeowners don't realize there are paints made specifically for plastic and vinyl or, if they do, they're afraid to paint those surfaces. Just be sure to choose a darker color for the sash than the one you choose for the siding. This will help draw the eye into the window, whereas white frames often stop the eye at the window's edge.

One tried-and-true color combination for homes is white siding with black shutters and a red door. But it was so overdone in Williams's home town of Skaneateles, N.Y., that he has developed an aversion to it. His favorite combination is a timeless palette of olive greens or light grays paired with a burgundy window sash. "Those can be highlighted with black trim, or you could bring burgundy around the trim," he says.

Light gray paired with burgundy? That's kind of what I have right now. Maybe I just need to paint the trim. Now, where are my colored pencils?