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Building a home or updating it can be a fun process. But when it comes to picking home exterior colors that make you happy, it can turn out to be stressful! That is why one client reached out to me. She and her husband were building their home and all the colors choices were stressing her out. She needed to decide on the exterior before she could concentrate on the interior. Here is the process we went through to get to the final choices.

Communication via email

Since I was overseas and we could not physically meet during COVID-19 lock downs, we exchanged several emails to discuss her concerns. I sent her a color preference questionnaire and she told me the ideas she was considering. I pointed her towards my online consultation page to schedule a time where we could both meet. On that page, she can pick a date and time and I would receive her request. I would then review it and let her know her time selection was approved and sent her an invitation to meet via Zoom. We selected this option because I wanted to share my screen and show her the options I came up with versus just Facetime messenger, which doesn’t allow me to share my computer screen.

House colors request

The homeowner felt overwhelmed with all the color choices but wanted to stick with either white, light gray or dark gray and possibly brown. Who wouldn’t feel overwhelmed when there are hundreds of different whites out there? She knew that if she picked the wrong color, it would be expensive to redo and she wanted to get it right.

We knew the following:

  1. She fell in love with a red brick foundation she wanted to use (see picture on right)
  2. She loved the farmhouse style of houses and wanted her new home to fit in with the surrounding rural area
  3. The homeowner knew she would have a black roof and shutters so that was a constant color I had to work with for the exterior color scheme
  4. The house would be Hardie siding with possibly some cedar shakes depending on what she decides
  5. She also wanted to “see” what her house could look like so she could feel better about the choice she makes

Because I was able to get her color options ahead of time, I created color palette options so I could show them during our meeting.

Below are the color options I showed her during our meeting. You can scroll through the options below. Which one do you like best?

Option 1 - White Exterior

More white

Black shutters/roof

Red brick foundation

Black front door

Option 2 - White/Cream

White/Cream house

Black shutters/roof

Red brick foundation

Wooden stained door

Option 3 - Mid Gray

Mid gray house

Black shutters/roof

White trim

Red brick foundation

Red/dark gray/dark stained front door

Option 4 - More Gray

More gray house

Black shutters/roof

Gray rock foundation

Red or blue front door

Option 5 - Dark Gray

Dark gray house

Black shutters/roof

White trim

Wood stained front door

Option 6 - Brown

Brown house

Black shutters/roof

Cream trim

Wood stained front door

After showing her the options, she REALLY loved the gauntlet gray and dorian gray!

During our actual meeting, I had some other slides to discuss exterior finishes like lights, garage doors and windows and showed some of the colors on actual houses. She was so excited to narrow it down to 2 options versus the 100s of other colors available on the color spectrum. This made her so happy that she could now focus on picking interior finishes that will be coming up soon.

So if you are having a hard time deciding what color or narrowing it down to just a few options, please contact me!