Earthy greens blend well with natural woodsy settings and are often used on bungalows and rustic shingle-style houses. Dark forest or pine green is a traditional color for shutters and trim on many colonial and Victorian-era houses. For a modern or art deco house, bright lime green can add pizazz. Add a touch of blue, and the color will turn a vivid turquoise. Choosing exterior paint colors is difficult, but the process can be fun when considering the global choices of green. Here are some houses with green exterior paint colors to help inspire you. Can a house color be too bright? What works in a beach community might rile neighbors in your own neighborhood. Eye-popping electric green can make a psychedelic statement if it’s in a San Francisco neighborhood. In a southern beach community, this green may look like cooling lime sherbet. Color psychology experts may tell you that a greenhouse symbolizes nature, and this house on a wooded lot fits right into that theory. They also say that green is a symbol of fertility, which is also about nature. As you think about color combinations for your home, don’t rule out red and green. Red and green are unexpected color combinations, but they are effective on this cottage in a tourist area of New Hampshire. The shades used here are a very common combination used in the 20th century, whether the building is red with green trim or green with red. This inviting structure was the town library from 1901 to 2010 in Jackson, New Hampshire. What color should you paint your house? Even if your roof is not slate, the shingles may suggest color combinations for your trim and accents. Remember that it’s just paint and it can be changed—if you paint the dormers white and it looks unbalanced, try a color such as green. Try reversing what you’ve painted white and green, or use different shades of green and no white. The choices are immense. Also, don’t forget to look at your house at different times of the day. You can’t have color without light, and the bright sun will surely change your home’s appearance throughout the day. You might want to try a color that looks vibrant throughout the day. The shade of green may be intense or muted. Either way, choose colors that harmonize nicely with natural woodwork or siding. Would this color combination work for your home? At first look, one might assume great thought was behind the color choices of this house. How much work really went into picking this green to complement the natural wood shingle gable? But look at the house down the street—a deep rose with contrasting gable. Same house, but with different siding. Perhaps the vinyl siding salesman had a successful day in that neighborhood. Dark green is a traditional color for architectural details on a red brick house. Red and green are complementary colors, opposite on the color wheel. Like the person with red hair, the person with a red brick house exterior has to be careful with accessories. The color choices for house trim are often shades of green but choose wisely. The trim color (or colors) should be a bridge between the roof and brick colors. The exterior color you choose for your own home can make it a tourist attraction or a subtle complement to your neighbor’s colors. The wise homeowner examines not only the style of a home but also the styles in a neighborhood. The familiar round tower of a Queen Anne-style home was often constructed of a different material or sided with a Victorian color that contrasted with the main home. Why not do the same for a more modern home? In the house shown here, color follows function. Similar to the 19th-century architecture phrase form follows function, this house has different colored siding for the different functions of the property—the house is a tint of green and the garage is a tint of yellow cream. The unifying color is the deep reddish brown accents on both units—the garage door and the window shutters. Painting experts tell us that the color green is made by mixing yellow and blue, so yellow is the perfect harmony to complement this green home. If it’s the all-purpose contrasting trim color, what makes your house unique? Compare this home with its red equivalent on the same street. This elegant, wood-framed, pale green stucco-sided house at 238 First Ave. in Delray Beach, Florida, was built around 1924. Its neighbor is a salmon-colored estate on Bankers Row. The delicate, subtle shades found on one side of First Avenue are not representative of the entire street, but they do define the muted tastefulness of what is called historic Bankers Row. The Crowninshield-Devereaux House at 74 Washington Square in Salem, Massachusetts, used to have a more pronounced hipped roof with a centered balustrade. The McAlester’s Field Guide may have called this three-story house, somewhat typical for Salem, an Adam style colonial. Built circa 1803, the house today has been split into condominia. The exterior, however, is intact and one of the most beautiful shades of sage green—a superb hue that goes well with white and black trim.
Sources
McAlester, Virginia and Lee. Field Guide to American Houses. New York. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. 1984, pp. 153-164HABS MA-582, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/ma0685/ [accessed March 21, 2016]
