Choosing Your Home’s Exterior Colors

Are you paralyzed at the thought of choosing a color for your home’s exterior? Maybe you find any type of color choice difficult. Or maybe you find choosing colors inside is easy – you work with favorite pieces of art work and decorative accessories to find a color scheme that speaks to you – but you just don’t know where to start when you look at your home’s exterior.

There are lots of great online resources to help you with choosing paint colors. The This Old House site has lots of great suggestions for exterior colors for older homes. There are also some great tools online that let you upload a photo of your home and then try different colors for the siding, trim and doors. This article in About.com gives a list of many of the resources available online. 

Color is Key for Curb Appeal

You know the old adage – you only get one opportunity to make a first impression. That’s true with your home as well. A great color scheme can make your home attractive to you, to your visitors and – if you’re thinking about selling anytime in the near future – to prospective buyers.

Unless you have a Victorian-style home that you want to dress up in “painted lady” fashion or another style of home with elaborate architectural details you want to emphasize, most home owners choose three colors for their homes:

• Siding color
• Trim color
• Door color

Here are some ways to get started with your color selection to make sure your home looks great:

First, look around your neighborhood. Unless you’re out in the country with few homes nearby, you probably want to look at the color schemes your neighbors have chosen. You don’t need to duplicate your neighbor’s choices – that would be boring and might not fit your taste at all – but most of us don’t want to create a color clash that we have to look at every day. Think about streets you drive down where one home’s color combination stands out from all the others. What’s your reaction?

Next, drive around neighborhoods where there are homes similar to yours. If you live in a Victorian, choose a neighborhood of Victorians. If your home is Arts and Crafts style, check out those neighborhoods. Love your ranch style home? Check out those neighborhoods You’ll not only get color inspiration from the homes you see and like – you’ll quickly figure out what color combinations don’t appeal to you.

Study your own home. What do you like about the colors you have now? What do you dislike? Is there anything you want to emphasize? Or de-emphasize? Take a look around your yard. If you’re on a heavily wooded lot consider how the shade will darken your color choices. Often people choose greens and browns when they’re in wooded areas. That can camouflage a home so if that’s not your goal, you may want to choose brighter colors. Think about the rest of the landscape as well. Do certain colors of flowers predominate? If so, maybe picking up those colors as accents colors would highlight your home and fit with your personal style.

Things you can’t change about your home should be taken into consideration as well. For example, unless you’re ready to put on a new roof, the color of your roof is something that you need to think about when choosing a color. Also consider the overall impression you want to convey. If you have a large home on a small lot, painting it a light color will make the lot seem even smaller. Dark colors can make a large home look smaller.

Once You’ve Made a Decision

Just like painting a room’s interior, once you’ve made a color choice for the exterior of your home get a brushout from the paint store of the color and take it around your home at various times of the day so that you can look at it in all types of light. If possible get the brushout early in your project so that you can see how it looks in sun, on gray days and in the rain.

If it’s time to repaint or restain your home but it’s just too big a project for you to tackle – or if you’ve got better things to do this summer like spending time on your boat or vacationing with family and friends – the crew at Dan Brady Painting and Wood Restoration can help. Call the office at 231-943-0161 and ask Amy to schedule you for an estimate.

Spring Spruce Up Time – Painting Your Doors and Trim

Spring is here and for those of us who live in northern climates we’re excited to get outside and enjoy the warmer weather. Warmer weather also means time to assess winter’s damage to gardens, decks, siding, doors and trim.

If you step outside your door, look back and see alligatored or peeling paint on the trim or peeling or scuffed paint on your door it may be time for a face lift. You’ll be amazed how great your house will look just from putting fresh paint on your doors and trim. It’s a quick way to welcome spring and make your whole house look more inviting.

Start With a Lead Based Paint Test

As a do-it-yourselfer there are some important steps you should take when preparing to paint your trim. The first step, if your home was built before 1978, is to test for lead paint. Lead paint is a real health hazard, especially to small children, so always test before you begin preparing any surface for painting. You can buy lead checkers for lead based paint at paint stores. I’ve found them at Northwood Paints in Traverse City. They’re a small cylinder about the size of a crayon and filled with a liquid that you squeeze on to the surface you’re planning to paint. Since there’s probably a safe latex paint top layer on your trim or doors, you’ll need to make a “V” shaped cut into the paint layers and then apply the liquid, which will change color in the presence of lead paint. I demonstrate how to do this in my recent UpNorthLiveReVibe segment. 

If you have lead based paint then it’s critical that you take precautions in preparing the surface. Instead of sanding or scraping, it’s best to use a liquid deglosser to prepare the paint. It’s like using liquid sandpaper. Best of all there’s no dust to clean up. You’ll see me use the deglosser when you watch UpNorthLiveReVibe.

Now I know that preparation is no one’s favorite part of a project – especially when there are so many other fun ways to spend your weekend. But preparation is the most important part of any painting project. Without a well prepared surface, the paint you’re applying probably won’t stick and you’ll end up disappointed in the results.

Use FrogTape® for Razor Sharp Lines You’ll Love

Once your door and the trim are clean and deglossed you’re ready to tape. Start working on the trim first. Tape off the areas where the door and trim meet with FrogTape® to make sure you get those razor sharp lines. If there are glass windows in your door, you can save yourself a lot of scraping – and the risk of scratching the glass – by taping off the areas where trim and glass meet. Use a good cut-in brush – Wooster makes great ones – to get started. Large trim areas can be rolled out with one of my favorite tools – the hot dog roller. Hot dog rollers are great for painting doors as well.

Use a good primer to coat the trim. Mad Dog makes a great one.  Your second coat can be your preferred trim color. Work quickly, especially if you’re in the sun where paint tends to dry rapidly.

Once the trim is done, you’re ready to start on the doors. If you’re doing the doors on a different day you can use regular FrogTape to protect your newly painted trim and keep those razor sharp lines. If you’re painting the doors within 24 hours of coating the trim, then use FrogTape delicate to mask off those areas.

Start painting the doors in the stress spots – where the door meets the weather stripping, the corners and around the door knob. Use your Wooster cut in brush for that. Then use a hot dog roller to coat the entire door. If you have the time, it’s a good idea to do two coats with a great outdoor latex paint. Check the experts at your local paint store to find out what’s best for your type of door.

Once you’re done, stand back and admire your job. See how great it makes your whole house look!

Ask Dan - Repairing Woodpecker Damage to Your Home

In Northern Michigan many homeowners choose cedar, rough pine or other types of wood siding for their homes. It’s beautiful and lends itself well to our relaxed “Up North” lifestyle. But if you have a home with wood siding, chances are you’ve heard a woodpecker doing a staccato-like pecking on the boards. 

Repairing those holes is critical to stopping woodpecker damage but some products that are traditionally for repairs don’t stand up well in our Northern Michigan winters. They get hard, expand and contract in hot and cold weather or crack and fall out of the hole. Patching becomes an endless job. Now there’s an architectural epoxy product on the market that expands and contracts as the weather changes, giving you a patch that lasts. It’s called Flex-Tec and it comes for Advanced Repair Technology.

Flex-Tec is a great product because it expands and contracts with weather changes. It also can be sculpted, which makes it great to use on older homes that have elaborate trim. It can be sanded, just like wood and painted or stained.

So if you have woodpecker damage or other damage to the wood siding or trim on your house, check out Flex-Tec. To learn more about the product visit Advanced Repair Technology’s website. 

 

For more information on why woodpeckers attack your siding, check out this article from the University of Rhode Island Extension Department. 

It’s important to remember that woodpeckers are a federally protected species. Whatever you do to keep woodpeckers away from your home, be sure it doesn’t hurt the bird or you could face stiff penalties.

Customer Spotlight: Lindsay Kelly

Lindsay Kelly isn’t the typical Dan Brady Painting and Wood Restoration customer.    First of all she lives in Ohio, which is a little out of Dan’s crew’s normal travel range.   And, she didn’t have the Dan Brady crew painting for her – she had Dan himself on the job.

So how did Dan end up painting Lindsay’s recently finished basement?   Well Lindsay works for FrogTape® and her basement became the set for a series of videos featuring Dan teaching people how to use FrogTape to create the look they want in their home.  

“We basically turned him loose in the basement,” Lindsay says.   “We’d finished it about a year and a half ago and just put a neutral paint color on the wall.”

When it was time to shoot the videos for Dan’s latest series, Lindsay’s basement was the perfect canvas for Dan.   His efforts included a 4 x 5 chalkboard wall for the Kelly kids to draw on and a stripe that help defined the seating space in the room.  Dan even painted chevron stripes on a simple rug from Target and a table for the kid’s section of the basement.

“Before Dan came to transform the space we had toys lined up along the wall and a couch against one wall.  He added a thick stripe a couple shades darker than our current wall color on three of the basement walls.  It added a lot of dimension to the room and made it homier.” Lindsay says.  “Now we have a kid area and a sitting area.  It’s really functional and it’s a fun area for the kids.”

As for working with Dan – it couldn’t have been a more positive experience.  “He really hit it off with my kids.   They just adored him.   They wanted to follow him and wanted to help him.   They even asked him to sleep over,” Lindsay says.   “He’s great with kids and just a great person to have around – as well as being very professional.

“Dan was great about it the whole project.   He wanted to be sure we were happy with everything and was very open to my ideas, she adds.   “My mom and a bunch of friends came to see the finished project and they all raved about how great it looked and what a little bit of paint and design can do for a space.   I just wish Dan lived close because I would recommend him to everybody and anybody.  He’s personable and friendly – he fit right it.   As a painter he has great ideas, he’s fast and detail oriented – everything that you’d want.”

Ask Dan: What Should I Use to Stain My Deck

With spring on its way, thoughts turn to time spent outside enjoying your deck. Unfortunately after your deck’s been sitting under a pile of snow all winter, it probably needs some work to look its best. This month’s question is one that Dan gets frequently from do-it-yourselfers who want their deck ready for our all too short Michigan deck sitting season.

Q. I’m thinking about staining my wood deck this spring. What type of deck stain would you recommend?

A. This is an important question to ask before you get started. There are several types of stain finishes you can use on your wood deck. To do make the best choice for your deck, you need to understand the difference between the stain finishes that are available:

• A clear stain or sealant’s main purpose is to repel water. It does not contain any UV light protection for your wood. If you use a clear stain on your deck, that’s a little bit like going to the beach for a day and not using any sunscreen.
• Transparent and semi-transparent deck stains provide a little UV protection for the wood on your deck. Using either of these two finishes is like using an 8 SPF suntan lotion on your skin at the beach. Because transparent and semi-transparent stains offer minimal UV protection, your deck will need to be redone about every two years. Many people choose these finishes, despite the need for regular recoating, because you are still able to see and appreciate the natural grain and texture of the wood.
• Semi-solid stains also allow you to see the natural grain and texture of the wood AND they also offer the wood in your deck more UV protection than do transparent and semi-transparent stains. Using our beach visit metaphor, applying a semi-solid stain is like applying sunscreen with a 15 SPF to your skin. With semi-solid stains, we recommend redoing the deck staining every two to four years.
• Solid stain offers the greatest protection from UV rays for your wood decking . It’s like applying a 30 SPF sunscreen. We tell clients who use solid stains to expect to redo their home about every five years, which is great if you want to save money on recoating. Some people don’t like solid stains as well though because they do cover most of the wood’s natural grain and texture, giving your deck more of a painted look. If you do decide to use a waterborne solid decking stain, I highly recommend using an oil based decking primer as your first coat. If you don’t, your deck will peel after wet snow sits on it all winter.

Be 100% Sure About Your Color Choice

By: Erica Aicher

Choosing colors is a demanding task that doesn’t come easily to everyone. Fortunately, there are several tools available on the internet that can help you decide on colors that are just right for you. Below are three of my favorite color selection tools available online.

PittsburghPaints, The Color Sense Game:

The color sense game by Pittsburgh Paints takes you through a series of 14 questions. They not only ask about what’s visually appealing to you, but also ask you questions that focus on the five sense, including  taste, touch, and sound. Questions focus on  determining where you feel most at home, picking five words that inspire you the most and choosing the  sound that connects to you the most. The color sense game digs deep into who you really are in order to find the best color scheme for you – one that reflects your personality and preferences. Once you are finished with the game, you’ll be placed into one of nine different categories. For example, one of the categories is water beads. The water beads category suggests various color options ranging from blues and teals to grays, and yellows. You’ll also receive an explanation of why you fit into the water beads category. 

2.       RealSimple, What’s Your Color Personality Quiz:

The What’s Your Color Personality Quiz by Real Simple is very similar to the color sense game. This quiz asks you 10 questions relating to things you like, such as your favorite season or your favorite vacation spot. Once you are done with the quick and easy quiz, it calculates what color fits your personality the best. For example, one of the personalities is the fire personality. The fire personality is drawn to bold and exciting colors such as reds and oranges. Just as with the color sense game, the personality quiz gives you an explanation to why you have fallen in this group. The results also give you related links to advice articles such as how to decorate with red. These related links will further help you in choosing colors for your home.

 Better Homes and Gardens, My Color Finder: 

For the Better Homes & Garden, my color finder tool, you need to sign up and become a member. Signing up is free. In the color finder tool, you can select a certain room, such as dining room, and then you select a dining room layout that fits what you are working with. Once you select your room layout you can choose multiple colors and “paint” various things like the walls, floor, and ceiling. There are several room options and various room layouts to choose from. This color finder doesn’t find a color scheme that fits your personality, but it does allow you to mix and match colors and visually see how they work together in a room. This is a very good visual aid in the color selection process.

Once the hard part is out of the way and you have decided on your color scheme, it’s important to make sure the colors you chose are 100% perfect for you. 

At Dan Brady Painting & Wood Restoration we encourage all of our clients to order brush outs of the colors they have chosen. A brush out is the actual paint color, in the preferred sheen, brushed out onto a large 8½ by 11 inch sheet of paper. Contrary to what this sounds like, it’s not  just an extra step and a waste of time. There are real benefits to adding this step in the room painting process and by taking it you could save money and a headache. 

What are the benefits of getting a brush out? You’re going to get a sample of the actual paint as it will appear in your home. The little color swatches you pick up at the paint store are printed in ink to match the color of the paint. Sometimes the ink match isn’t the best representation of the paint color. 

When you get a brush out of the actual paint, you might notice a slight color difference. Another reason to get a brush out is that color swatches don’t have the different sheen options  which can make the color look very different when it’s in your room. For example; a satin or semi-gloss sheen could potentially brighten up the color since a higher gloss will reflect more light where as a lower sheen such as a flat or ceramic matte may make the color look deep and rich. 

A paint store can mix up a quart of paint with the sheen you want and give you a brush out so you know exactly what the color will look like with the sheen you choose. The brush out gives you the benefit of seeing the paint on a larger scale instead of a small 2 x 2 inch sample. You can take the brush out and put it up on different parts of the wall, see if you like it in the daytime and nighttime, and really get a feel for what the color will do when it is up in your home. 

Many times a client will tell us that they are absolutely sure on the color they have chosen and that a brush out isn’t needed. “Why go to  an unnecessary step,”  they ask?. We urge all our clients to get a brush out, explain why it’s so important and encourage the client to order one even if they are positive on the color. It’s not unusual to have to order brush outs of different colors because they saw that the brushed out color just wasn’t what they expected.

What can happen if you don’t choose a brush out?  You end up purchasing gallons of paint that ends up on your walls and you may even tell the painters to stop because the color doesn’t look right. It could happen to you. That’s why we recommend taking the extra step, ordering a brush out of your chosen color and making sure the paint job in your home is the color and sheen you’ve dreamed about.