Hi Christine,
I'm so glad I found your blog! I love your advice about using subtle greens and am leaning towards SW6171 Chatroom or SW6150 Universal Khaki like you mentioned on one of your blogs. Can you please let me know if you think those colors will be OK with this house? I'm concerned that it won't look good with the Austin stone.
Your help is greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Mia
Hi Mia,
From my computer monitor, I would say that either color you mentioned will look good with your stone. Your main challenge will be finding the right color of off white trim that blends really nicely with the stone. Perhaps something like wool skein 6148 (never take my work for it- get sample quarts- computer monitors are not reliable enough!)
Chatroom is going to be more colorful, (but still subtle enough that it is a very tasteful way to go), whereas, Universal Khaki, although it has a lot of green in it will come out more neutral. Again, neither is better than the other, just a difference of opinion. Get sample quarts of both, put some on the house, and see what you think. Do not put the samples right next to one another, unless you are considering using them both. The Chatroom will make the Universal Khaki look more beige than it is.
I found this home below online, and they gave the colors used. I thought it was a very nice combination.
7507 Stone Lion- Lower stucco (from the horizontal trim down) and brick
7036 Accessible Beige- All other stucco and siding
7002 Downy- All trim, eaves, and top of brick
7647 Crushed Ice- Porch ceiling
7643 Pussywillow- Porch floor
6362 Tigereye- Front Door
Comparing, I found that Stone Lion is just a touch darker than Universal Khaki. Very very similar to what you are considering. My advice- use more than two colors. Even if they are subtle differences, it looks SO MUCH nicer. Where you have the horizontal line, with the shake siding above... the shake siding should be a different color than the horizontal siding. The broken pediment over your porch should not be the same color as the field paint either. The horizontal line is also painted the trim color- not the field color. Don't have ANY tirm painted the field color- EVER! Trim gives a house it's character.
Sometimes people are tempted to keep it simple, or inexpensive, but it really is a world of difference to have a more appropriately complete color combination. The photo below used wood shake, but use it as a guide to see where you would change your paint colors. Use at least 4 colors.
1. Trim- look at the white on the photo below.
2. Shake siding
3. Horizontal siding
4. Door
(photo from For the Nest)
Check out the home below, where they took a single color too far:
The home above needs at least two more colors-one for trim and one for shake siding. It honestly makes me sad to see such a beautifully classic home painted so incorrectly. (Am I the only one sad... are any of you about to cry out there?) Well, I can't end my post on such a downer- so I'll show you one more good example:
I say a minimum, and above is an example of how you could use two different colors for your trim.
These guidelines for painting the exterior of a home are not just for Craftsman homes. If anyone else has a similar project with any questions- just send me your photos. I love telling people what to do. ;-)
Thursday, April 19, 2012 at 3:49PM 
Reader Comments (1)
Ooo, you want to pick my colors??? I just got permission from my husband to paint it whatever colors you recommend, woot woot! :) It's just a humble little double wide but if anyone can make it pretty it's you! <3 Let me know if you need a better picture, this is all I had handy. There are two columns on the front, one is hiding behind the bush. I was thinking about building little planter boxes around the bottoms of them, they look so odd just ending in mid air like that. The roof has solar shingles, kind of a silvery white-grey. I'm not a fan of browns, it's so brown here during the summer that I can't bear to add any more of it to the landscape :) But I trust your judgement explicitly, I'll do whatever you say! I loved the craftsman colors you picked above, my dream house would look a lot like that.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-RKlHFwYg73w/TzrfnvrTYHI/AAAAAAAACRM/aWjl5No3eDo/s776/12+-+1