June 21, 2025 • 39 mins
This episode of the RepcoLite Home Improvement Show, sponsored by Benjamin Moore, guides listeners through the process of selecting exterior paint colors with confidence. Topics covered include the importance of considering existing materials and landscaping, the impact of lighting on color appearance, and the influence of architectural style on color decisions. Dan also discusses how to use color samples effectively, the Benjamin Moore Color Portfolio app, and the benefits of using high-quality paints such as Benjamin Moore and RepcoLite. Listeners are encouraged to take their time, seek limited but trusted opinions, and use available resources to make informed decisions about their exterior home colors.00:00 Sweet corn!05:07 Choosing Exterior Paint Colors with Confidence09:38 Ground Rules for Picking Exterior Colors13:04 Considering Existing Materials and Constraints18:41 Introduction to Exterior Color Selection19:37 Architectural Styles and Color Schemes21:12 Colonial, Victorian, and Craftsman Homes23:30 Ranch Homes and Mid-Century Colors25:30 Working with Brick Exteriors29:35 How Many Colors to Use?32:49 Shutters, Doors, and Final Thoughts37:03 Choosing the Right Paint
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, good morning, everybody. Happy Saturday. You're listening to the
Repco Light Home improvement show sponsored by Benjamin Moore. You're
starting your Saturday off like a champion. How are y'all doing?
How was your week? That's the bigger question. Saturday, Sunday,
these are gonna be great days. How was your week?
Was it great? Was it memorable? Did you do something
(00:22):
you know that your family maybe you know, maybe we'll
be reminding you of for years to come. Did anything
like that happen happen to you? Well? I did that, Absolutely,
I did that, And even for me, this is embarrassing.
But I'm going to tell you about it briefly before
I get into the show, just because it's on my mind,
and maybe this will exercise it, you know, cast it
(00:46):
out of my mind so I don't have to think
about it anymore. Anyway. The other night, we had hot
dogs and sweet corn for dinner, and we love sweet corn.
I have always loved sweet corn since I was but
a wee lad. But the problem with sweet as you're
all well aware, is that it's not easy to eat
in a very dignified manner. Right. It's like ribs or
something in that regard. You've got that cob. It's covered
(01:09):
in butter. You know, it's dripping everywhere, you're running it
across your face like like it's the carriage of a typewriter.
It's just messy, right, It's a given. We're all equals
when we're eating sweet corn. You know, there's no royalty
when you're eating sweet corn, or at least no dignified royalty,
because I can't imagine a polished way, a classy way
(01:29):
to eat corn on the cob. It's not that kind
of food anyway. I made it ten times worse on accident. Now, basically,
this is a non story. There's really I don't even
know how to tell it. It's not really a chain
of events. It's a non story. I don't even know
what happened. I don't know what caused all of this
to happen. I was working my way across the cob,
(01:50):
you know, eating away, and I was thinking, as I
always do when I'm doing that, I'm thinking that I
look like a little typewriter, right, just clicking my way along.
And then when I get to the end, I always
think there should be a bell that goes ding, and
then I can return to the other end of the
cop and keep working, you know, my way back again
like a typewriter. I'm sure everybody thinks those exact same thoughts.
(02:14):
I'm doing that, all right, that's happening at the table.
I'm thinking those things, and I must this is all
I can think. I must have made some kind of ridiculous,
deep in thought face, you know, as I'm working my
way across the corn on the cop something like that.
I was doing something odd because I happened to look
up as I'm munching, and Hannah, who's sitting next to
(02:35):
me on my left, is staring straight into my soul
and not just steering. She's got this ridiculous grin on
her face. Her mouth is, you know, just wide open
in this mid laugh. I don't know what to call it,
a silent laugh of hilarity. Her eyes are just streaming tears.
She is absolutely just having a moment laughing at something
(03:00):
I'm doing. And she's holding it all in. It's all silent,
and I catch that, you know, that rapture of hilarity
on her face, and I'm sorry, but I completely exploded.
I laughed so hard, so instantly and boisterously. I couldn't
help it, And of course I had my mouth full
(03:22):
of sweet corn, sweet precious sweet corn, so delicious full
in my mouth, and I laugh. You can only imagine.
In fact, you can't imagine the scene that played out.
I'm sure you're gonna try to imagine. Then you're gonna
wish you hadn't. But it was just like some kind
of scene from a war movie. I exploded and sweet
(03:44):
corn went from the head of the table everywhere. I mean,
I'm probably gonna be finding sweet corn on the blinds
for months to come. I'm gonna be finding sweet corn
kernels in all kinds of crazy places, and everybody's gonna say,
why is this here? And then they're gonna remember this
moment again and we're gonna relive it. I sprayed my
(04:05):
entire family with food, completely unintentionally. The worst part of
it all was not just the look of you know,
people laughing about it, because that came later sometimes for
a couple of kids, much later. The main thing was
just this look of sheer disgust. Somehow they thought I
did this on purpose, that just out of the blue,
(04:26):
I decided I'm gonna spray sweetcorn across the table for
no reason, just because the meal wasn't exciting enough. Perhaps. Anyway,
I think they're gonna be eating in ponchos for years
to come. They're for sure gonna be laughing about this
as time goes by. That was my week. That was
just part of my week. That is how I roll. Yeah, Normally,
(04:50):
normally I embarrassed myself at least once or twice during
a week. This one was big. This one was so
gross and so big, so I decided to share it
on the radio with the more people. That's how my
brain works. I don't get it either. Anyway, let's move
on to the show. Let's talk about important things on
the show. This week. I'm going to be talking all
about choosing exterior paint colors with confidence. That's going to
(05:12):
be the whole show, and it's going to apply to
not just paint, but yeah, siding colors, roofing colors. I'm
going to give you some tips and tricks to just
help you make that decision a little more confidently, you know,
because have you ever been in that boat where you've
got to choose exterior colors? You know, you're sitting there
rifling through fandex. You're trying to decide what colors would
(05:33):
be perfect for your home. Have you ever been there?
And like I said, it could be paint colors, but
it could also be you know, things like roof colors,
siding colors, even just front door colors. It's a big decision,
you know, you're trying to figure out the right color.
Have you ever been there? Well, if you did go
through that process of picking colors for the exterior of
your home, the exterior of your home or for an
(05:54):
outbuilding on your property, you know, the process can be
a little dicey. You know. Maybe for you it was
smooth like butter I don't know, smooth like butter on
the cob, I don't know. Or maybe it was bumpy,
like my experience with corn on the cob. My children
were very bumpy after being covered with sweet corn. That's
just ridiculous analogy. But was it smooth for you picking
(06:15):
those colors or was it a bumpy process? I don't
know how it worked for you. It doesn't really matter.
I did a little googling about how other real people
felt about the process of choosing colors for the exterior
of their home, and here are some, just just a
few of my favorite quotes describing their experiences, maybe yours
have been similar. Number one. The first quote I loved,
(06:37):
and it's this quote. I cried a lot. Actually, I
love that one. I cried a lot. Actually another quote,
it was the most stressed I've ever been. They've clearly
never eaten with me, but this was still a stressful
experience for that person. A third person, after getting their
house painted, they assessed the freshly painted house and said
(07:00):
it looked quote so childish. It was like a smurf house,
and I couldn't afford to have it repainted. All right.
Can you feel the stress coming from those situations, those quotes,
If you've got any imagination at all, you definitely can.
It's a big deal. Having a house painted isn't cheap.
The materials themselves, the paint itself, it's not expensive, but
(07:22):
the labor is. And doing it yourself, you know, that's
a huge money saver. But it's a lot of work,
and if you haven't done it before, it's a really
big project. If you've done it before, it's a big project.
You maybe feel a little more comfortable about it, but
it's still a big project. And to do all of that,
you know, to pay all that money, or do all
of that work and then not love the results. Well,
(07:43):
that's scary, that's stressful. On top of that, you know,
the exterior of your home, it's visible to everybody who
drives by. You know, if you make a mistake with
the color in your living room and your family sees it,
you know, that's it. It's not fun. But you know
that's the group of people who are seeing your miss
and most likely they've seen you make far, far worse
(08:03):
mistakes than that, so it's not a big deal. But
you make a mistake on the exterior of your home,
the exterior color, and the world is going to know
about it, and the world is going to talk about it, right,
They're going to talk about it. You know they do,
because you do and I do. We all walk past
or drive past homes that have no terrible, ridiculous color schemes,
(08:24):
and we can't help but talk about them. You know
what happened here? You know, we're very curious. We want
to know how this happened. And you don't want to
be the focus of conversations like that across your neighborhood.
You don't want to be the butt of all those jokes.
So let's fix that. And to do that, I'm going
to spend the show adapting a color training that we've
(08:45):
got for our employees at Repcolite. Haley you remember her.
She was on the show with me for a year
and a half, two years something like that, and she
left the show about a year or so ago so
she could focus on training all of our employees on
product tools, color things like that. And recently she just
rolled out her newest training module and it's a training
(09:06):
design to help us help you find the right exterior
color when you come into Repcolite. Now, this training it
was so so good, so really good, that's what I
was going to say, so good that I decided I've
got to adapt it here and present it to you
with a few of my own thoughts kind of mixed in.
And you'll know which ones those are because they're kind
(09:27):
of the boneheaded ones or the off off topic ones.
But anyway, this is largely Haley's info. I wanted to
make sure I gave her the props and the credit
for it, because she did a great job with it.
All right, First things first, this first segment, let's talk
about some important ground rules for picking exterior colors. You know,
when you're getting ready to select exterior colors for your home,
(09:48):
for your shutters, your front door, your shed, whatever. First thing,
the more light there is, the lighter color is going
to look. So outdoors with the sun as a light source,
and as far as light sources go, that's a big one.
You know. I can't think of a bigger light source
than the sun. So with the sun as a light source,
your colors are going to look two to three shades
lighter on an exterior than that same color would look
(10:11):
inside the home. That's really important to remember. I've seen
people pick a light gray, for example, that's clearly gray
on the color chip. You know, they look at it,
it's clearly a mid tone gray. They might even think,
And I've seen these same people come back in later
to say that it looks almost white outside. You want
to avoid that mistake, and you do that by selecting
colors that are a couple of shades darker than you
(10:33):
want it to look in the end. Now, I know
that feels counterintuitive, but that's how it works, and you're
going to be glad you adjusted your palette accordingly. So
remember that second thing, second ground rule or rule of
thumb is if you're painting more than just your front
door or your shutters, remember that you're working on a
huge canvas. You know, if you're doing the exterior of
your home, it's a huge canvas. And that larger scale
(10:55):
means that those colors, you know, the colors you pick,
they can easily become overwhelming. Remember that person from earlier
who described her house as a smurf house, what's going
on in that situation is exactly this. She picked a
color that most likely looked good when it was presented
in smaller doses. However, once it covered the entire exterior,
it gained strength from that large scale exposure and it
(11:17):
ended up looking ridiculous, like a smurf house. And you
don't want that. So you avoid that by looking for
toned colors that have some gray in them. And this
makes them easier on the eyes. It just makes them
feel more sophisticated, easier to look at. It just doesn't
overwhelm you. So to help with this, check out some
color collections like Benjamin Moore's Affinity or Historic Collections, both
(11:39):
of those are great, or even their Williamsburg color collection.
Williamsburg is basically one hundred and forty four muted tones
or hues inspired by eighteenth century colonial homes. All of
these fandex that I listed, Affinity, the Historic Collections, the
Williamsburg Color Collection, all of them are safe bets and
they're going to scale beautifully on big surfaces. So that's
(12:00):
going to give you a safety net there. Check out
those color collections, all right. Third thing, last thing, Sample
your colors. We sell Benjamin More color samples that will
put real paint in your hands. You can actually brush
it onto the surface that you're going to be painting.
It's worth going through this work. You're not going to
regret it. So paint a large area at least two
foot by two foot on the siding of the house
(12:22):
or the brick or whatever you're painting, if possible. That's
way better than just painting a smooth piece of foam
board or poster board because the texture, believe it or not,
the texture on your siding can change how that color looks.
So paint the actual siding and then observe it morning, noon, night,
and make sure that it's the vibe you're going for.
All right, that's just the beginning. Let's take a break
(12:42):
and when we come back, Let's talk about the next
big thing to think about, and that's the existing colors
on your home. You know, things that aren't going to
be changing. You've got to keep those in mind. And
we'll talk about that in just a minute, and stick
around and we're back. You're listening to the Repco Light
Home improvement Show sponsored by Benjamin Moore, and this week
(13:05):
we're talking about how to safely and confidently choose exterior
paint colors or I guess it could be siding colors,
door colors, shutter colors, whatever. All right, let's talk about
the importance of taking into account the existing materials that
you're working with, basically, the constraints that are in place
before you even start looking at colors. Now I'm thinking
you're landscaping your roof, gutters and down spouts, window casings
(13:28):
and grills and so on. Now, all of these materials,
they're in place on your home, and they're heavily going
to influence or constrain your exterior color choices. And that
kind of sounds a bit like a bummer, it does,
But there is a bit of good news here. And
even if you don't have exterior painting projects coming up,
tune back into me for a second. Come back to me, folks,
(13:50):
just for a second, because this applies to interioror painting
as well, and it honestly applies to a huge part
of life. I mean, I'm dishing out some philosophical life
help or whatever. I'm not helping you with your English.
I'm just helping you with your lives. So this is
all good stuff. These items that I'm talking about, they're constraints,
(14:11):
and we always have constraints when we do anything. You know,
let's talk about projects in general. Though. There's budget constraints.
There's the layout of the home. There's the furniture that
we can't afford to replace right now. You know, appliances
that are this color or that color. There's a tub
and a toilet. All of those things are in place,
and we don't always replace all of those, so we've
got to deal with them. They're constraints. Outside there's the roof,
(14:34):
the landscaping, so on. All of these things constrain our
color choices. And when we hear that, we tend to
feel bummed. Like I said, we feel that our creativity
is being leashed or muzzled, and in a way it is,
and we tend to tell ourselves that I could pick
colors more easily and have a lot more fun if
I didn't have these limits. And that's where things get
a little cloudy, And that's where the good news comes in,
(14:54):
because it turns out that in reality, for the most part,
when we've got unlimited options, you know, unlimited freedom, we
tend to freeze up. It's kind of interesting. Boundaries and
limits and constraints actually help us dial in our choices
and start making productive decisions quicker. The things that feel
like limits, you know, a budget, architecture, existing materials, they're
(15:15):
actually giving us a place to push off from a
foundation for creativity and psychology. It's backed up by research.
Constraints Spark innovation studies show that small obstacles can increase
creative problem solving by nearly forty percent. So rather than
think of your home's roof color, or your budget or
your landscaping as strictly limitations, instead see them as pathways
(15:38):
giving you a direction. Okay, with that said, let's look
at some of these limitations or existing items that you
absolutely have to take into account when choosing colors and
look for how you can lean into them on your
home or use their nudgings to kind of get you
moving in the right direction, right, the right color direction.
Let's start with the landscaping. It's a big one and
it's easy to overlook if you're choosing colors in winter
(15:59):
or early spring when nothing's blooming. But the landscape plays
a major role in how your home looks. If you've
got a lot of green stuff going on, a lot
of green stuff, if you've got a lot of green
out there in your landscaping, hostas ferns, evergreens, don't choose
a green exterior. Too much of that, all of that green,
and the house is going to just disappear into the yard.
(16:19):
Say goes for white. If you've got lots of white
blossoms in the spring, maybe skip white for the body color.
Look at the dominant tones in your landscaping and choose
colors that compliment, not match, or compete with them all right. Next,
watch out for unpainted materials that you're leaving as is, stonework,
brick block foundations. They can all be painted, but if
you're not doing that, those tones should absolutely guide your
(16:42):
color choices. And it seems obvious, but there's a house
that I drive by often that missed this. Their stone
has this bluish cool, bluish tone and the new sighting
it's a color that clashes completely. It looks fine head
on because you don't see the stone from the front
of the house, but from an angle where the stone
in the side you meet, it's jarring. It's just really,
(17:04):
really wrong. You can tell it's wrong. It's a mistake
that was probably only obvious after the job was done.
Don't get caught that way. Let those permanent features inform
your palette. Same goes for gutters and down spots. They
can be changed or painted. They can be, but if
you're not planning on that, don't forget to factor them in.
Facia and sophets fall into the same category. Two. Last
(17:24):
of all, the roof, the biggest, probably least flexible element
of all. Roofs don't get changed often, so the color
really matters up there now. In general, the body of
the house should be lighter than the roof to maintain balance.
If you've got a gray or a black roof, stick
to cool tones like blues and grays. If you've got
a brown roof, then warm tones like beige, tope or
(17:44):
red can be a safer bat Now. I know I
didn't give out a lot of specific color direction in
that segment. That wasn't really my goal. I wasn't trying
to lay out a lot of color recommendations for everybody's situation.
I really just wanted to bring to mind all of
the different things that you want to keep in mind
as you start making your color choices. You know, certain
aspects are easy to forget about and that can end
(18:06):
up biting you. Just keep these things in mind and
think of these materials, these existing colors, as you know,
maybe has bread crumbs that can lead you to certain
color choices. Like I guess Hansel and Gretel had the
bread crumbs, but I guess the birds ate the bread crumbs,
so maybe these are bread crumbs that the birds won't eat.
Think of them that way. Things that are leading you
(18:28):
to certain color choices, their hints that your home is
giving you. Listen to those hints. It's going to help
you cut through the clutter of the color rack and
you'll eliminate thousands and thousands of options, and you'll reduce
the color rack to just a couple of color families.
It can really help, So keep that in mind. All right,
let's take a break, and when we come back, let's
look at how a home's architecture does or doesn't need
(18:49):
to inform your color selections. That's all coming up next.
Stick around. You're listening to the Repcolite Home Improvement Show
Exterior Color Selection Training Extravaganza sponsored by Benjamin Moore. Basically,
(19:11):
I'm walking you through the best I can through a
color training that we go through at Repcolite so we
can help you when you're searching for exterior colors for
your home. Haley, I'm sure you remember Haley, she used
to be on the show. Haley put this all together
and brought it to our stores just recently, and I
thought it was so good that I adapted it so
I could work it, you know, put it here on
(19:33):
the show and get it out to you guys. So
that's what I'm working through now. What I want to
get to is I want to talk about the architectural
style of your home and how that should or maybe
doesn't need to influence your color decisions. You know, depending
on the style of your home, we may find ourselves feeling,
(19:53):
I guess, locked in to certain color schemes. Sometimes we
know what those color schemes include and other times times
other times we just don't you know, maybe we're new
to that style home, we just bought it, it's our
first home. Whatever, we haven't a clue. We know there's
color schemes associated with it, we don't know what they are,
so we end up either feeling profoundly limited by our
(20:14):
options or profoundly confused and a little bit nervous. You know,
we don't want to slap a color scheme on a
house that's completely wrong for that architectural style. At least
that's often, you know, the thinking out there. However, unless
we're talking about a historic home in a historic district,
you really don't need to feel completely locked in the
(20:36):
architectural style that you've got. It can guide, you know,
your color choices, and it should probably help you. You know,
it should guide your choices, but you don't need to
feel like you're on a trail. But you don't need
to feel like you're on a trail that you can't
diverge from. You know, there's wiggle room. That's the first
thing I want to stress in this segment is, unless
you're in a historic district, you've got a fair amount
(20:58):
of wiggle room. Now, if you're struggle, I mean to
read between the lines here, I'm encouraging you to lighten
up a little bit. You know, you've got more freedom
than you may have thought. Still with that said, let's
look at some of the classic color schemes for some
classic styles of homes. And I want to start with
the colonial. Now colonial architecture. It includes Cape Cod, Georgian,
(21:18):
Dutch colonial homes. Colonial architecture traditionally makes use of a
color scheme of kind of you know, muted classic neutrals.
So think crisp whites, soft creams, beige's, or grays, all
of those colors for the main body of the home.
You know, they're usually paired with primary colors like dark green, black,
barn red, or maybe even yellow for your doors, shutters,
(21:41):
and trim. So that's colonial architecture. If you've got a
Victorian home, let me tell you you've got options here,
options galore. It's like being at the buffet somewhere somewhere good,
you know, not just the buffet somewhere, but somewhere good.
A lot of options. In fact, there really aren't a
lot of rules when it comes to these types of homes.
You know, we sometimes think there are, we assume there are,
(22:04):
but when you really get down to it, that's not
the case. You can really stretch and still have everything
turn out well. With Victorian architecture, for example, you can
do everything from rich jewel tones like emeralds or sapphires
to soft pastels. A lot of freedom here, So if
you find yourself choosing colors for a Victorian home, feel
free to stretch a little bit, push the boundaries, and
(22:25):
have a little bit of fun. Now. Another common architectural
style is a craftsman home, and the term craftsmen represents
a really broad architectural category. And while most people you
know kind of picture a very specific look when they
hear craftsmen, it actually includes quite a range of subtypes
and styles that all stem from that same design philosophy.
(22:46):
You know, these homes are all about warmth, craftsmanship, and character.
The craftsman movement it includes you know, a variety of
designs from bungalows to boxy four squares to mission influenced homes.
All are rooted in kind of natural materials, strong lines,
and like I said that craftsmen feel that hand crafted,
you know, feel handcrafted details. However, you want to say
(23:07):
that traditionally, colorwise, these lean towards earthy, muted colors. So
think browns, sages, and grays. The colors feel grounded, they
feel historically accurate for those types of homes. But with these,
don't be too afraid to modernize them a little bit
by bringing in some mustard or olive accents. That would
(23:28):
work really well with these. All right, moving on, let's
look at ranch homes. Now, colonial and craftsmen homes, they
trace their roots back to the eighteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The ranch house is pure mid century Americana. You know,
they've got single story layouts, open floor plans and kind
of this feeling of horizontal sprawl. Now, when it comes
(23:48):
to colors in ranches, you know, it's kind of it
varies a lot. It's hard to pin down. It's not uncommon, though,
to see a lot of earthy tones, you know, so
think tope brown tan for the body, colors like that,
with whiter brown for the trim. Really often we see
burgundy deep green for the doors and shutters, you know,
(24:10):
color schemes like that, and that's probably the most common.
But these homes, really, you know, they could be quite
interesting in the fifties and sixties. We've got some old
repcoal light exterior color charts from that era. And the
colors of that era were pretty crazy. So this isn't
specific to ranches, but ranches in you know, the fifties
(24:30):
and sixties they really excelled when it came to a
little bit of extravagance. So you could see soft pastels
on the bases, so pale aquas and buttery yellows and
all of that on you know, the base of the house,
and then bright colors for the doors and the shutters,
you know, white or black for the trim, and that
was pretty common in the fifties and sixties or so.
(24:52):
All right, those are some you know, main architectural styles
and their traditional color palettes. But remember, unless you're in
a historic district, you're really not bound to use those
color schemes. You know, you've got a lot of freedom,
and you can really tap into the colors that you
most love, regardless of the style. By all means, let
those traditional colors and the architectural style of your home
(25:15):
at least guide you or at least whisper to you
a little bit. They can make suggestions just remember, you
don't have to listen to those suggestions or take them
up on it unless you're in the historic district. Then
you better check the rules, because there's going to be
rules all right Now, Before we move on from all
of this and get to the last segment, I want
to focus on a building material on many different homes,
(25:39):
no matter their style, and I probably should have put
this in last segments conversation. In hindsight, I see that
it would have fit better there, but I didn't do that,
and I'm not going back in time, not this time,
not going to do it. So I'm going to ump
it in right here. I'm going to talk about a
building material that's on all kinds of different architectural style
(26:00):
and it's sometimes hard to work with. What I'm talking
about is brick, and unless you're actually painting the brick,
you're going to have to treat that brick kind of
as the star of the show here. I guess it
depends on how much of it is on the home,
But if the home is largely brick, of course it's
going to have to be the star of the show.
It's the main color in your color scheme, and that's obvious,
(26:21):
but it's more complicated than that because the brick isn't
really a single color at all. It's a texture, it's
a pattern, and when it comes to color, it's a
bunch of different colors that, when viewed as a whole,
you know, make up an average color that our eye sees.
So you've got to keep all of that in mind
when you're working with brick. But a lot of times
people don't do this, and instead they go the easiest
(26:43):
route with brick and they make the accent colors white.
We just often don't know what else to do. But
painted surfaces on a brick home should all take a
back seat. You know. That's a big rule of thumb
with brick. Anything that you paint, shutters, doors, all of
that that should take the back seat. Let the brick
be the main star of the show. Let it do
its thing. And when you put white trim on a
(27:06):
brick home, that white trim, those white accents do anything
but take a back seat. They're just way too stark
on a surface like that. They break up the house's
natural flow and they can make the house actually look broken.
You know. There's just some tension that's created from all
the light being reflected back from those surfaces, while the
texture on the main body of the home, the brick
(27:26):
is absorbing so much light. There's just this tension that's
created to reduce or eliminate that. You want to choose
colors so that your trim, your window casings, your doors,
your foundations, all of those materials, all of those areas,
I should say, recede. You know, colors like dark topes, browns, blacks,
or colors like dark blue, teal, or green, even all
(27:47):
of them will complement the orange red tones that we
see in brick without being loud, without being in your face.
And in the end, the home is going to look
more subtle, more cohesive, and it's just because it's been
put together a little more intentionally at that point. Now,
if you're absolutely committed to having lighter tones for the
trim match the mortar color, this is still going to
(28:09):
give off a visual that's going to give a nod
towards having white trim, but it's not going to be
as stark as white trim. It's not gonna break everything.
It's going to work alongside the pattern, you know, and
the color variations in the brick, because that mortar actually
does make up that average that we see, that average
color that our eye sees. The mortar's right in there,
so it's going to kind of work with that, and
(28:30):
it's not going to separate from it. All right. So
if you want to have light color on your trim
and you've got a brick home, match the mortar color.
All right. That's a ton of info, big info dump
that I just threw in your face. Hopefully, hopefully it
helps you out. And remember if you just can't remember
everything I said and you need to revisit it, you
(28:52):
can always find it online at repco light dot com.
Just click the on the radio tab on the homepage
and you can find the latest episode that way, so
you can catch this again. All right, let's take a
break right now, and when we come back, we'll wrap
all this up with some final thoughts. Stay right there,
or actually go wherever, do whatever you want. Just come
back in a few minutes. We'll talk to you in
(29:13):
a minute, and we're back. You're listening to the Repolite
Home Improvement Show and our spotlight on how to feel
comfortable and confident when picking exterior colors for your home.
And we've covered a lot of ground at this point,
But there are a few things left that I want
(29:33):
to hit before I wrap it all up for the week.
And the first one is this, how many colors should
you use on an exterior color scheme? You know, is
there a rule when it comes to picking these colors?
Because we're talking about picking them, I better give you
some kind of idea as to how many you should
be choosing. Is it two colors that you need? Is
it three? Maybe it's twelve. I don't know, Maybe it's
(29:54):
seventeen and a half. Maybe it's a different number. What
is the right number when it comes to exterior color schemes?
How many colors? Well, of course, the reality is it depends.
You know, it's going to depend on a combination of
the homes details. You know what you've got to work with,
and the vibe you're going for. You know what you
want to achieve with the home. For example, if you
(30:15):
want to emphasize a vibe of simplicity, you know that's
what you're after. Just calm, simplicity, and you've got a ranch,
Just stick with two colors. You know, you've got a
body color and a single accent color. That's plenty. If
you want to infuse a little energy into the design
or highlight certain aspects of the home. Add in a
third color you know that still works with that ranch,
(30:35):
and you can achieve you know, that slightly more energetic
exterior that you're looking for. Now, let's say you're working
with a Victorian home and you've got just loads of
gingerbread trim. You know, everywhere you look there's something new happening.
If you've got that and you want to simplify everything
and streamline it all, if that's the vibe you're after,
all you need to do is limit your color choices.
(30:57):
Fewer accent colors will cause excess architectural elements to blend
into other ones, and it's going to soften that overall.
Look now, if you want to draw attention to all
of those details, of course, then you just lean into color.
Go for three, four, maybe more, maybe five six colors.
It all depends on what you're working with. The big
thing here is this, if you do stretch, you know,
whether it's the ranch, whether it's the you know, Victorian home,
(31:20):
or anything in between. If you do stretch and bring
in more colors, you need to be consistent. You know,
you're essentially creating a pattern with color. Here, if there's
an architectural feature that you're painting a given color, be
sure that there's enough of that feature to make that
choice look right and look intentional. Too many colors without
enough repetition can look chaotic and it can look like
(31:42):
a mistake. So make sure there's enough of that feature,
you know, to make that color that you're bringing in
look right. Also, if you're going to do that, be
sure that you make all of those features that same color.
You know. Don't mess up your pattern basically is what
I'm saying, And that sounds kind of silly, but it
happens all the time, and if you look at homes
around your neighborhood, you're going to find some that do that.
(32:04):
I saw one the other day that all the ca
scenes of the windows were painted a given accent color
except a bay window, where they painted all of them
the actual base color of the home. It didn't look terrible,
but it did break the pattern, and it would have
been better had they stuck with the pattern all the
way around. So be aware of that. Keep that in
(32:24):
mind as you start bringing more colors in. Make sure
you're consistent. One last thing, as you're working with or
thinking about how many colors you want to bring in.
Here's a really practical thing to think about. The more
accent colors you bring in, the more money it's going
to cost to get the home painted, and in some cases,
the harder it's going to be to find a painter
willing to tackle all of that minutia. You know, all
(32:46):
of that work. So keep that in mind, all right,
Moving on another thing to think about shutters and doors.
You know, we've talked about accent colors, and we've mentioned
doors and shutters plenty of times, but let's talk about
them specifically here for a little bit. If a home
has shutters, there's a popular understanding that those shutters should
be painted the same color as the door. Well, that's
(33:07):
not a rule. You know, you can follow it, you know,
that's fine, But a better guide is to again assess
your goals the vibe you're after. Do you want to
simplify and streamline that exterior look of your home. If
that's the case, you know, paint the shutters the same
color as the door, or if you want to bring
in kind of a third color, make them a little
bit darker, a shade darker than the door. You know,
(33:28):
keep everything in the same family, maybe just a little
bit darker. That's going to help streamline the look. It's
going to simplify the exterior a little bit. If you're
hoping to infuse a little interest or some whimsy or
energy or whatever you want to call it, you know,
infuse that into the exterior. Then of course, feel free
to vary the colors of the shutters and doors, and
sometimes even vary them dramatically. All right, so that's shutters
(33:50):
and doors. Now final thoughts. You know, I'm sorry, this
whole last segment is kind of just a it's a hodgepodge.
It's like a buffet. Pick and choose what you like.
I've got some final thoughts and then we'll wrap it
all up. First thing is this, don't rush when it
comes to choosing your color schemes. Take your time with
the samples, take your time finding inspiration. If you're feeling pressured,
(34:12):
you know, sometimes by a painter, by a designer, by yourself.
A lot of the times it's us, you know, our
own selves, who are our own worst enemies. You're pushing
yourself to get the answer, to come up with a solution.
Just try to give yourself a break if it's somebody
else pushing you. You know. I understand there are timelines,
there are deadlines, and they're going to need certain colors
(34:33):
by certain times, but if you're feeling rushed, just try
to find a way to slow it down a little bit.
Nobody makes good decisions when you're feeling rushed, So keep
that in mind and be sure. Along these same lines,
as you're looking at all these colors and thinking about
which way you want to go, remember that you should
be looking at your colors in different lighting conditions throughout
(34:53):
different times of the day before you make that final choice.
You know, don't land on a color, look at it
in the afternoon on the side of the house and
call it good. Make sure you give yourself that extra
time to see it in the morning, to see it
in the evening, and just make sure that when the
lighting changes that color is still exactly what you want.
All right, along these same lines, still talking about colors here,
(35:15):
be sure that you check out Benjamin Moore's color Portfolio app.
I know everybody and their brother has an app, and
it gets to be a little much after a while,
but the Benjamin Ward Color Portfolio app is really worth
downloading if you've got paint projects coming up. It's going
to give you access to all of their fan decks,
so you can view colors easily right on your phone.
But you can also test out colors on various exteriors
(35:39):
on the app itself. They've got a few, you know,
maybe four preloaded house exteriors that you can try the
colors out on. You can also take pictures of your
own home and upload that. But even if you use
their stock photos, you definitely can get a good idea
of how colors look together, which is cool. But it's
also going to give you a good idea of how
a given color looks much lighter outside. You know, we
(36:00):
talked about that earlier, that colors outside can look two
to three shades lighter. You're going to see a lot
of that in this app. So it's definitely a great
tool to have if you're getting ready to start an
exter your your painting project, or really honestly any painting project.
Download it and check it out. It's free. It's the
Benjamin war Color Portfolio app. You can find it where
you find your apps. All right, next thing, be careful
(36:22):
about getting opinions you know we all do it, and
we often all need to go get outside thoughts. But
if you do that, if you go that route when
it comes to your exterior colors, I'd recommend that you
get one or maybe at most to other people whose
design opinions you really admire. Don't get many more people
than that, because too many opinions usually makes making that
(36:43):
decision a little bit harder. Moving on, remember we're here
to help at Repcolite as well. You know, we've got
people at every single Repcolite location who are trained and
ready to walk you through this process. So bring your photos,
bring your samples, bring anything that you think will help
and will go over your specific situation with you and
help you make the best color choices possible. Finally, last thing,
(37:04):
I've got, get the right paint. You know, whether you
hire a contractor or whether you do the project yourself,
you as the homeowner, you've got the power to choose
the paint that you want on your home. Benjamin Moore.
Exterior paint products are going to excel when it comes
to performance and durability. You know or Exterior Regal select
Exterior their top of the line products. You're not going
to find better out there. Benjamin Moore's Element Guard. It's
(37:26):
also a great product, and it's claim to fame is
really interesting. If we get rain even just an hour
after the product was applied, it's still going to be fine.
That's unheard of in the industry. It's a really great
safety net if you're painting in the early spring or
the late fall when weather is a little more unpredictable. Now,
another thing to consider with Benjamin Moore products is that
(37:47):
it's not just the quality of the paint that you're getting.
You're also getting products that are tinted. With Benjamin Moore's
gen X Colorance, this is kind of geeky stuff. It's
a little bit nerdy, it's a little bit boring, and
I don't often talk about them on the show, but
gen X Colorance they're designed to enhance the durability and
color retention of exterior paints, especially in harsh weather conditions.
These colorants are going to help exterior paints resist fading, cracking,
(38:10):
and peeling, and it ensures that the chosen color stays
true for a much longer time. So Benjamin Moore paint products,
they're tried and true. They're going to give you long
lasting color and protection and durability for your home. Ask
for them. But don't forget about Repcolite products either. We
make them in Holland. Most of you already know that,
and we've been doing it for over seventy six years now.
(38:30):
So we've got it down and we've got a great
exterior option called Endura, and as a bonus, we tint
it with another high performance colorant system that's going to
give performance similar to Benjamin Moore's gen X Colorance. So
whatever you pick, Benjamin Moore or Repcolite, just make sure
you get the best paint you can all right. That's
going to do it. That's all the time we've got.
We're going to wrap it up. If you want to
catch it again, you can find it online at repcolit
(38:52):
dot com. Whatever you do today makes your paints a
part of it. And remember the next project you tackle
is way easier than you think. Stop out at your
nearest Repcolite and let us help. Have a great weekend everybody,
and I'll see you next week. I'm Dan Hansen. Thanks
for listening.
Well, good morning, everybody. Happy Saturday. You're listening to the
Repco Light Home improvement show sponsored by Benjamin Moore. You're
starting your Saturday off like a champion. How are y'all doing?
How was your week? That's the bigger question. Saturday, Sunday,
these are gonna be great days. How was your week?
Was it great? Was it memorable? Did you do something
(00:22):
you know that your family maybe you know, maybe we'll
be reminding you of for years to come. Did anything
like that happen happen to you? Well? I did that, Absolutely,
I did that, And even for me, this is embarrassing.
But I'm going to tell you about it briefly before
I get into the show, just because it's on my mind,
and maybe this will exercise it, you know, cast it
(00:46):
out of my mind so I don't have to think
about it anymore. Anyway. The other night, we had hot
dogs and sweet corn for dinner, and we love sweet corn.
I have always loved sweet corn since I was but
a wee lad. But the problem with sweet as you're
all well aware, is that it's not easy to eat
in a very dignified manner. Right. It's like ribs or
something in that regard. You've got that cob. It's covered
(01:09):
in butter. You know, it's dripping everywhere, you're running it
across your face like like it's the carriage of a typewriter.
It's just messy, right, It's a given. We're all equals
when we're eating sweet corn. You know, there's no royalty
when you're eating sweet corn, or at least no dignified royalty,
because I can't imagine a polished way, a classy way
(01:29):
to eat corn on the cob. It's not that kind
of food anyway. I made it ten times worse on accident. Now, basically,
this is a non story. There's really I don't even
know how to tell it. It's not really a chain
of events. It's a non story. I don't even know
what happened. I don't know what caused all of this
to happen. I was working my way across the cob,
(01:50):
you know, eating away, and I was thinking, as I
always do when I'm doing that, I'm thinking that I
look like a little typewriter, right, just clicking my way along.
And then when I get to the end, I always
think there should be a bell that goes ding, and
then I can return to the other end of the
cop and keep working, you know, my way back again
like a typewriter. I'm sure everybody thinks those exact same thoughts.
(02:14):
I'm doing that, all right, that's happening at the table.
I'm thinking those things, and I must this is all
I can think. I must have made some kind of ridiculous,
deep in thought face, you know, as I'm working my
way across the corn on the cop something like that.
I was doing something odd because I happened to look
up as I'm munching, and Hannah, who's sitting next to
(02:35):
me on my left, is staring straight into my soul
and not just steering. She's got this ridiculous grin on
her face. Her mouth is, you know, just wide open
in this mid laugh. I don't know what to call it,
a silent laugh of hilarity. Her eyes are just streaming tears.
She is absolutely just having a moment laughing at something
(03:00):
I'm doing. And she's holding it all in. It's all silent,
and I catch that, you know, that rapture of hilarity
on her face, and I'm sorry, but I completely exploded.
I laughed so hard, so instantly and boisterously. I couldn't
help it, And of course I had my mouth full
(03:22):
of sweet corn, sweet precious sweet corn, so delicious full
in my mouth, and I laugh. You can only imagine.
In fact, you can't imagine the scene that played out.
I'm sure you're gonna try to imagine. Then you're gonna
wish you hadn't. But it was just like some kind
of scene from a war movie. I exploded and sweet
(03:44):
corn went from the head of the table everywhere. I mean,
I'm probably gonna be finding sweet corn on the blinds
for months to come. I'm gonna be finding sweet corn
kernels in all kinds of crazy places, and everybody's gonna say,
why is this here? And then they're gonna remember this
moment again and we're gonna relive it. I sprayed my
(04:05):
entire family with food, completely unintentionally. The worst part of
it all was not just the look of you know,
people laughing about it, because that came later sometimes for
a couple of kids, much later. The main thing was
just this look of sheer disgust. Somehow they thought I
did this on purpose, that just out of the blue,
(04:26):
I decided I'm gonna spray sweetcorn across the table for
no reason, just because the meal wasn't exciting enough. Perhaps. Anyway,
I think they're gonna be eating in ponchos for years
to come. They're for sure gonna be laughing about this
as time goes by. That was my week. That was
just part of my week. That is how I roll. Yeah, Normally,
(04:50):
normally I embarrassed myself at least once or twice during
a week. This one was big. This one was so
gross and so big, so I decided to share it
on the radio with the more people. That's how my
brain works. I don't get it either. Anyway, let's move
on to the show. Let's talk about important things on
the show. This week. I'm going to be talking all
about choosing exterior paint colors with confidence. That's going to
(05:12):
be the whole show, and it's going to apply to
not just paint, but yeah, siding colors, roofing colors. I'm
going to give you some tips and tricks to just
help you make that decision a little more confidently, you know,
because have you ever been in that boat where you've
got to choose exterior colors? You know, you're sitting there
rifling through fandex. You're trying to decide what colors would
(05:33):
be perfect for your home. Have you ever been there?
And like I said, it could be paint colors, but
it could also be you know, things like roof colors,
siding colors, even just front door colors. It's a big decision,
you know, you're trying to figure out the right color.
Have you ever been there? Well, if you did go
through that process of picking colors for the exterior of
your home, the exterior of your home or for an
(05:54):
outbuilding on your property, you know, the process can be
a little dicey. You know. Maybe for you it was
smooth like butter I don't know, smooth like butter on
the cob, I don't know. Or maybe it was bumpy,
like my experience with corn on the cob. My children
were very bumpy after being covered with sweet corn. That's
just ridiculous analogy. But was it smooth for you picking
(06:15):
those colors or was it a bumpy process? I don't
know how it worked for you. It doesn't really matter.
I did a little googling about how other real people
felt about the process of choosing colors for the exterior
of their home, and here are some, just just a
few of my favorite quotes describing their experiences, maybe yours
have been similar. Number one. The first quote I loved,
(06:37):
and it's this quote. I cried a lot. Actually, I
love that one. I cried a lot. Actually another quote,
it was the most stressed I've ever been. They've clearly
never eaten with me, but this was still a stressful
experience for that person. A third person, after getting their
house painted, they assessed the freshly painted house and said
(07:00):
it looked quote so childish. It was like a smurf house,
and I couldn't afford to have it repainted. All right.
Can you feel the stress coming from those situations, those quotes,
If you've got any imagination at all, you definitely can.
It's a big deal. Having a house painted isn't cheap.
The materials themselves, the paint itself, it's not expensive, but
(07:22):
the labor is. And doing it yourself, you know, that's
a huge money saver. But it's a lot of work,
and if you haven't done it before, it's a really
big project. If you've done it before, it's a big project.
You maybe feel a little more comfortable about it, but
it's still a big project. And to do all of that,
you know, to pay all that money, or do all
of that work and then not love the results. Well,
(07:43):
that's scary, that's stressful. On top of that, you know,
the exterior of your home, it's visible to everybody who
drives by. You know, if you make a mistake with
the color in your living room and your family sees it,
you know, that's it. It's not fun. But you know
that's the group of people who are seeing your miss
and most likely they've seen you make far, far worse
(08:03):
mistakes than that, so it's not a big deal. But
you make a mistake on the exterior of your home,
the exterior color, and the world is going to know
about it, and the world is going to talk about it, right,
They're going to talk about it. You know they do,
because you do and I do. We all walk past
or drive past homes that have no terrible, ridiculous color schemes,
(08:24):
and we can't help but talk about them. You know
what happened here? You know, we're very curious. We want
to know how this happened. And you don't want to
be the focus of conversations like that across your neighborhood.
You don't want to be the butt of all those jokes.
So let's fix that. And to do that, I'm going
to spend the show adapting a color training that we've
(08:45):
got for our employees at Repcolite. Haley you remember her.
She was on the show with me for a year
and a half, two years something like that, and she
left the show about a year or so ago so
she could focus on training all of our employees on
product tools, color things like that. And recently she just
rolled out her newest training module and it's a training
(09:06):
design to help us help you find the right exterior
color when you come into Repcolite. Now, this training it
was so so good, so really good, that's what I
was going to say, so good that I decided I've
got to adapt it here and present it to you
with a few of my own thoughts kind of mixed in.
And you'll know which ones those are because they're kind
(09:27):
of the boneheaded ones or the off off topic ones.
But anyway, this is largely Haley's info. I wanted to
make sure I gave her the props and the credit
for it, because she did a great job with it.
All right, First things first, this first segment, let's talk
about some important ground rules for picking exterior colors. You know,
when you're getting ready to select exterior colors for your home,
(09:48):
for your shutters, your front door, your shed, whatever. First thing,
the more light there is, the lighter color is going
to look. So outdoors with the sun as a light source,
and as far as light sources go, that's a big one.
You know. I can't think of a bigger light source
than the sun. So with the sun as a light source,
your colors are going to look two to three shades
lighter on an exterior than that same color would look
(10:11):
inside the home. That's really important to remember. I've seen
people pick a light gray, for example, that's clearly gray
on the color chip. You know, they look at it,
it's clearly a mid tone gray. They might even think,
And I've seen these same people come back in later
to say that it looks almost white outside. You want
to avoid that mistake, and you do that by selecting
colors that are a couple of shades darker than you
(10:33):
want it to look in the end. Now, I know
that feels counterintuitive, but that's how it works, and you're
going to be glad you adjusted your palette accordingly. So
remember that second thing, second ground rule or rule of
thumb is if you're painting more than just your front
door or your shutters, remember that you're working on a
huge canvas. You know, if you're doing the exterior of
your home, it's a huge canvas. And that larger scale
(10:55):
means that those colors, you know, the colors you pick,
they can easily become overwhelming. Remember that person from earlier
who described her house as a smurf house, what's going
on in that situation is exactly this. She picked a
color that most likely looked good when it was presented
in smaller doses. However, once it covered the entire exterior,
it gained strength from that large scale exposure and it
(11:17):
ended up looking ridiculous, like a smurf house. And you
don't want that. So you avoid that by looking for
toned colors that have some gray in them. And this
makes them easier on the eyes. It just makes them
feel more sophisticated, easier to look at. It just doesn't
overwhelm you. So to help with this, check out some
color collections like Benjamin Moore's Affinity or Historic Collections, both
(11:39):
of those are great, or even their Williamsburg color collection.
Williamsburg is basically one hundred and forty four muted tones
or hues inspired by eighteenth century colonial homes. All of
these fandex that I listed, Affinity, the Historic Collections, the
Williamsburg Color Collection, all of them are safe bets and
they're going to scale beautifully on big surfaces. So that's
(12:00):
going to give you a safety net there. Check out
those color collections, all right. Third thing, last thing, Sample
your colors. We sell Benjamin More color samples that will
put real paint in your hands. You can actually brush
it onto the surface that you're going to be painting.
It's worth going through this work. You're not going to
regret it. So paint a large area at least two
foot by two foot on the siding of the house
(12:22):
or the brick or whatever you're painting, if possible. That's
way better than just painting a smooth piece of foam
board or poster board because the texture, believe it or not,
the texture on your siding can change how that color looks.
So paint the actual siding and then observe it morning, noon, night,
and make sure that it's the vibe you're going for.
All right, that's just the beginning. Let's take a break
(12:42):
and when we come back, Let's talk about the next
big thing to think about, and that's the existing colors
on your home. You know, things that aren't going to
be changing. You've got to keep those in mind. And
we'll talk about that in just a minute, and stick
around and we're back. You're listening to the Repco Light
Home improvement Show sponsored by Benjamin Moore, and this week
(13:05):
we're talking about how to safely and confidently choose exterior
paint colors or I guess it could be siding colors,
door colors, shutter colors, whatever. All right, let's talk about
the importance of taking into account the existing materials that
you're working with, basically, the constraints that are in place
before you even start looking at colors. Now I'm thinking
you're landscaping your roof, gutters and down spouts, window casings
(13:28):
and grills and so on. Now, all of these materials,
they're in place on your home, and they're heavily going
to influence or constrain your exterior color choices. And that
kind of sounds a bit like a bummer, it does,
But there is a bit of good news here. And
even if you don't have exterior painting projects coming up,
tune back into me for a second. Come back to me, folks,
(13:50):
just for a second, because this applies to interioror painting
as well, and it honestly applies to a huge part
of life. I mean, I'm dishing out some philosophical life
help or whatever. I'm not helping you with your English.
I'm just helping you with your lives. So this is
all good stuff. These items that I'm talking about, they're constraints,
(14:11):
and we always have constraints when we do anything. You know,
let's talk about projects in general. Though. There's budget constraints.
There's the layout of the home. There's the furniture that
we can't afford to replace right now. You know, appliances
that are this color or that color. There's a tub
and a toilet. All of those things are in place,
and we don't always replace all of those, so we've
got to deal with them. They're constraints. Outside there's the roof,
(14:34):
the landscaping, so on. All of these things constrain our
color choices. And when we hear that, we tend to
feel bummed. Like I said, we feel that our creativity
is being leashed or muzzled, and in a way it is,
and we tend to tell ourselves that I could pick
colors more easily and have a lot more fun if
I didn't have these limits. And that's where things get
a little cloudy, And that's where the good news comes in,
(14:54):
because it turns out that in reality, for the most part,
when we've got unlimited options, you know, unlimited freedom, we
tend to freeze up. It's kind of interesting. Boundaries and
limits and constraints actually help us dial in our choices
and start making productive decisions quicker. The things that feel
like limits, you know, a budget, architecture, existing materials, they're
(15:15):
actually giving us a place to push off from a
foundation for creativity and psychology. It's backed up by research.
Constraints Spark innovation studies show that small obstacles can increase
creative problem solving by nearly forty percent. So rather than
think of your home's roof color, or your budget or
your landscaping as strictly limitations, instead see them as pathways
(15:38):
giving you a direction. Okay, with that said, let's look
at some of these limitations or existing items that you
absolutely have to take into account when choosing colors and
look for how you can lean into them on your
home or use their nudgings to kind of get you
moving in the right direction, right, the right color direction.
Let's start with the landscaping. It's a big one and
it's easy to overlook if you're choosing colors in winter
(15:59):
or early spring when nothing's blooming. But the landscape plays
a major role in how your home looks. If you've
got a lot of green stuff going on, a lot
of green stuff, if you've got a lot of green
out there in your landscaping, hostas ferns, evergreens, don't choose
a green exterior. Too much of that, all of that green,
and the house is going to just disappear into the yard.
(16:19):
Say goes for white. If you've got lots of white
blossoms in the spring, maybe skip white for the body color.
Look at the dominant tones in your landscaping and choose
colors that compliment, not match, or compete with them all right. Next,
watch out for unpainted materials that you're leaving as is, stonework,
brick block foundations. They can all be painted, but if
you're not doing that, those tones should absolutely guide your
(16:42):
color choices. And it seems obvious, but there's a house
that I drive by often that missed this. Their stone
has this bluish cool, bluish tone and the new sighting
it's a color that clashes completely. It looks fine head
on because you don't see the stone from the front
of the house, but from an angle where the stone
in the side you meet, it's jarring. It's just really,
(17:04):
really wrong. You can tell it's wrong. It's a mistake
that was probably only obvious after the job was done.
Don't get caught that way. Let those permanent features inform
your palette. Same goes for gutters and down spots. They
can be changed or painted. They can be, but if
you're not planning on that, don't forget to factor them in.
Facia and sophets fall into the same category. Two. Last
(17:24):
of all, the roof, the biggest, probably least flexible element
of all. Roofs don't get changed often, so the color
really matters up there now. In general, the body of
the house should be lighter than the roof to maintain balance.
If you've got a gray or a black roof, stick
to cool tones like blues and grays. If you've got
a brown roof, then warm tones like beige, tope or
(17:44):
red can be a safer bat Now. I know I
didn't give out a lot of specific color direction in
that segment. That wasn't really my goal. I wasn't trying
to lay out a lot of color recommendations for everybody's situation.
I really just wanted to bring to mind all of
the different things that you want to keep in mind
as you start making your color choices. You know, certain
aspects are easy to forget about and that can end
(18:06):
up biting you. Just keep these things in mind and
think of these materials, these existing colors, as you know,
maybe has bread crumbs that can lead you to certain
color choices. Like I guess Hansel and Gretel had the
bread crumbs, but I guess the birds ate the bread crumbs,
so maybe these are bread crumbs that the birds won't eat.
Think of them that way. Things that are leading you
(18:28):
to certain color choices, their hints that your home is
giving you. Listen to those hints. It's going to help
you cut through the clutter of the color rack and
you'll eliminate thousands and thousands of options, and you'll reduce
the color rack to just a couple of color families.
It can really help, So keep that in mind. All right,
let's take a break, and when we come back, let's
look at how a home's architecture does or doesn't need
(18:49):
to inform your color selections. That's all coming up next.
Stick around. You're listening to the Repcolite Home Improvement Show
Exterior Color Selection Training Extravaganza sponsored by Benjamin Moore. Basically,
(19:11):
I'm walking you through the best I can through a
color training that we go through at Repcolite so we
can help you when you're searching for exterior colors for
your home. Haley, I'm sure you remember Haley, she used
to be on the show. Haley put this all together
and brought it to our stores just recently, and I
thought it was so good that I adapted it so
I could work it, you know, put it here on
(19:33):
the show and get it out to you guys. So
that's what I'm working through now. What I want to
get to is I want to talk about the architectural
style of your home and how that should or maybe
doesn't need to influence your color decisions. You know, depending
on the style of your home, we may find ourselves feeling,
(19:53):
I guess, locked in to certain color schemes. Sometimes we
know what those color schemes include and other times times
other times we just don't you know, maybe we're new
to that style home, we just bought it, it's our
first home. Whatever, we haven't a clue. We know there's
color schemes associated with it, we don't know what they are,
so we end up either feeling profoundly limited by our
(20:14):
options or profoundly confused and a little bit nervous. You know,
we don't want to slap a color scheme on a
house that's completely wrong for that architectural style. At least
that's often, you know, the thinking out there. However, unless
we're talking about a historic home in a historic district,
you really don't need to feel completely locked in the
(20:36):
architectural style that you've got. It can guide, you know,
your color choices, and it should probably help you. You know,
it should guide your choices, but you don't need to
feel like you're on a trail. But you don't need
to feel like you're on a trail that you can't
diverge from. You know, there's wiggle room. That's the first
thing I want to stress in this segment is, unless
you're in a historic district, you've got a fair amount
(20:58):
of wiggle room. Now, if you're struggle, I mean to
read between the lines here, I'm encouraging you to lighten
up a little bit. You know, you've got more freedom
than you may have thought. Still with that said, let's
look at some of the classic color schemes for some
classic styles of homes. And I want to start with
the colonial. Now colonial architecture. It includes Cape Cod, Georgian,
(21:18):
Dutch colonial homes. Colonial architecture traditionally makes use of a
color scheme of kind of you know, muted classic neutrals.
So think crisp whites, soft creams, beige's, or grays, all
of those colors for the main body of the home.
You know, they're usually paired with primary colors like dark green, black,
barn red, or maybe even yellow for your doors, shutters,
(21:41):
and trim. So that's colonial architecture. If you've got a
Victorian home, let me tell you you've got options here,
options galore. It's like being at the buffet somewhere somewhere good,
you know, not just the buffet somewhere, but somewhere good.
A lot of options. In fact, there really aren't a
lot of rules when it comes to these types of homes.
You know, we sometimes think there are, we assume there are,
(22:04):
but when you really get down to it, that's not
the case. You can really stretch and still have everything
turn out well. With Victorian architecture, for example, you can
do everything from rich jewel tones like emeralds or sapphires
to soft pastels. A lot of freedom here, So if
you find yourself choosing colors for a Victorian home, feel
free to stretch a little bit, push the boundaries, and
(22:25):
have a little bit of fun. Now. Another common architectural
style is a craftsman home, and the term craftsmen represents
a really broad architectural category. And while most people you
know kind of picture a very specific look when they
hear craftsmen, it actually includes quite a range of subtypes
and styles that all stem from that same design philosophy.
(22:46):
You know, these homes are all about warmth, craftsmanship, and character.
The craftsman movement it includes you know, a variety of
designs from bungalows to boxy four squares to mission influenced homes.
All are rooted in kind of natural materials, strong lines,
and like I said that craftsmen feel that hand crafted,
you know, feel handcrafted details. However, you want to say
(23:07):
that traditionally, colorwise, these lean towards earthy, muted colors. So
think browns, sages, and grays. The colors feel grounded, they
feel historically accurate for those types of homes. But with these,
don't be too afraid to modernize them a little bit
by bringing in some mustard or olive accents. That would
(23:28):
work really well with these. All right, moving on, let's
look at ranch homes. Now, colonial and craftsmen homes, they
trace their roots back to the eighteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The ranch house is pure mid century Americana. You know,
they've got single story layouts, open floor plans and kind
of this feeling of horizontal sprawl. Now, when it comes
(23:48):
to colors in ranches, you know, it's kind of it
varies a lot. It's hard to pin down. It's not uncommon, though,
to see a lot of earthy tones, you know, so
think tope brown tan for the body, colors like that,
with whiter brown for the trim. Really often we see
burgundy deep green for the doors and shutters, you know,
(24:10):
color schemes like that, and that's probably the most common.
But these homes, really, you know, they could be quite
interesting in the fifties and sixties. We've got some old
repcoal light exterior color charts from that era. And the
colors of that era were pretty crazy. So this isn't
specific to ranches, but ranches in you know, the fifties
(24:30):
and sixties they really excelled when it came to a
little bit of extravagance. So you could see soft pastels
on the bases, so pale aquas and buttery yellows and
all of that on you know, the base of the house,
and then bright colors for the doors and the shutters,
you know, white or black for the trim, and that
was pretty common in the fifties and sixties or so.
(24:52):
All right, those are some you know, main architectural styles
and their traditional color palettes. But remember, unless you're in
a historic district, you're really not bound to use those
color schemes. You know, you've got a lot of freedom,
and you can really tap into the colors that you
most love, regardless of the style. By all means, let
those traditional colors and the architectural style of your home
(25:15):
at least guide you or at least whisper to you
a little bit. They can make suggestions just remember, you
don't have to listen to those suggestions or take them
up on it unless you're in the historic district. Then
you better check the rules, because there's going to be
rules all right Now, Before we move on from all
of this and get to the last segment, I want
to focus on a building material on many different homes,
(25:39):
no matter their style, and I probably should have put
this in last segments conversation. In hindsight, I see that
it would have fit better there, but I didn't do that,
and I'm not going back in time, not this time,
not going to do it. So I'm going to ump
it in right here. I'm going to talk about a
building material that's on all kinds of different architectural style
(26:00):
and it's sometimes hard to work with. What I'm talking
about is brick, and unless you're actually painting the brick,
you're going to have to treat that brick kind of
as the star of the show here. I guess it
depends on how much of it is on the home,
But if the home is largely brick, of course it's
going to have to be the star of the show.
It's the main color in your color scheme, and that's obvious,
(26:21):
but it's more complicated than that because the brick isn't
really a single color at all. It's a texture, it's
a pattern, and when it comes to color, it's a
bunch of different colors that, when viewed as a whole,
you know, make up an average color that our eye sees.
So you've got to keep all of that in mind
when you're working with brick. But a lot of times
people don't do this, and instead they go the easiest
(26:43):
route with brick and they make the accent colors white.
We just often don't know what else to do. But
painted surfaces on a brick home should all take a
back seat. You know. That's a big rule of thumb
with brick. Anything that you paint, shutters, doors, all of
that that should take the back seat. Let the brick
be the main star of the show. Let it do
its thing. And when you put white trim on a
(27:06):
brick home, that white trim, those white accents do anything
but take a back seat. They're just way too stark
on a surface like that. They break up the house's
natural flow and they can make the house actually look broken.
You know. There's just some tension that's created from all
the light being reflected back from those surfaces, while the
texture on the main body of the home, the brick
(27:26):
is absorbing so much light. There's just this tension that's
created to reduce or eliminate that. You want to choose
colors so that your trim, your window casings, your doors,
your foundations, all of those materials, all of those areas,
I should say, recede. You know, colors like dark topes, browns, blacks,
or colors like dark blue, teal, or green, even all
(27:47):
of them will complement the orange red tones that we
see in brick without being loud, without being in your face.
And in the end, the home is going to look
more subtle, more cohesive, and it's just because it's been
put together a little more intentionally at that point. Now,
if you're absolutely committed to having lighter tones for the
trim match the mortar color, this is still going to
(28:09):
give off a visual that's going to give a nod
towards having white trim, but it's not going to be
as stark as white trim. It's not gonna break everything.
It's going to work alongside the pattern, you know, and
the color variations in the brick, because that mortar actually
does make up that average that we see, that average
color that our eye sees. The mortar's right in there,
so it's going to kind of work with that, and
(28:30):
it's not going to separate from it. All right. So
if you want to have light color on your trim
and you've got a brick home, match the mortar color.
All right. That's a ton of info, big info dump
that I just threw in your face. Hopefully, hopefully it
helps you out. And remember if you just can't remember
everything I said and you need to revisit it, you
(28:52):
can always find it online at repco light dot com.
Just click the on the radio tab on the homepage
and you can find the latest episode that way, so
you can catch this again. All right, let's take a
break right now, and when we come back, we'll wrap
all this up with some final thoughts. Stay right there,
or actually go wherever, do whatever you want. Just come
back in a few minutes. We'll talk to you in
(29:13):
a minute, and we're back. You're listening to the Repolite
Home Improvement Show and our spotlight on how to feel
comfortable and confident when picking exterior colors for your home.
And we've covered a lot of ground at this point,
But there are a few things left that I want
(29:33):
to hit before I wrap it all up for the week.
And the first one is this, how many colors should
you use on an exterior color scheme? You know, is
there a rule when it comes to picking these colors?
Because we're talking about picking them, I better give you
some kind of idea as to how many you should
be choosing. Is it two colors that you need? Is
it three? Maybe it's twelve. I don't know, Maybe it's
(29:54):
seventeen and a half. Maybe it's a different number. What
is the right number when it comes to exterior color schemes?
How many colors? Well, of course, the reality is it depends.
You know, it's going to depend on a combination of
the homes details. You know what you've got to work with,
and the vibe you're going for. You know what you
want to achieve with the home. For example, if you
(30:15):
want to emphasize a vibe of simplicity, you know that's
what you're after. Just calm, simplicity, and you've got a ranch,
Just stick with two colors. You know, you've got a
body color and a single accent color. That's plenty. If
you want to infuse a little energy into the design
or highlight certain aspects of the home. Add in a
third color you know that still works with that ranch,
(30:35):
and you can achieve you know, that slightly more energetic
exterior that you're looking for. Now, let's say you're working
with a Victorian home and you've got just loads of
gingerbread trim. You know, everywhere you look there's something new happening.
If you've got that and you want to simplify everything
and streamline it all, if that's the vibe you're after,
all you need to do is limit your color choices.
(30:57):
Fewer accent colors will cause excess architectural elements to blend
into other ones, and it's going to soften that overall.
Look now, if you want to draw attention to all
of those details, of course, then you just lean into color.
Go for three, four, maybe more, maybe five six colors.
It all depends on what you're working with. The big
thing here is this, if you do stretch, you know,
whether it's the ranch, whether it's the you know, Victorian home,
(31:20):
or anything in between. If you do stretch and bring
in more colors, you need to be consistent. You know,
you're essentially creating a pattern with color. Here, if there's
an architectural feature that you're painting a given color, be
sure that there's enough of that feature to make that
choice look right and look intentional. Too many colors without
enough repetition can look chaotic and it can look like
(31:42):
a mistake. So make sure there's enough of that feature,
you know, to make that color that you're bringing in
look right. Also, if you're going to do that, be
sure that you make all of those features that same color.
You know. Don't mess up your pattern basically is what
I'm saying, And that sounds kind of silly, but it
happens all the time, and if you look at homes
around your neighborhood, you're going to find some that do that.
(32:04):
I saw one the other day that all the ca
scenes of the windows were painted a given accent color
except a bay window, where they painted all of them
the actual base color of the home. It didn't look terrible,
but it did break the pattern, and it would have
been better had they stuck with the pattern all the
way around. So be aware of that. Keep that in
(32:24):
mind as you start bringing more colors in. Make sure
you're consistent. One last thing, as you're working with or
thinking about how many colors you want to bring in.
Here's a really practical thing to think about. The more
accent colors you bring in, the more money it's going
to cost to get the home painted, and in some cases,
the harder it's going to be to find a painter
willing to tackle all of that minutia. You know, all
(32:46):
of that work. So keep that in mind, all right,
Moving on another thing to think about shutters and doors.
You know, we've talked about accent colors, and we've mentioned
doors and shutters plenty of times, but let's talk about
them specifically here for a little bit. If a home
has shutters, there's a popular understanding that those shutters should
be painted the same color as the door. Well, that's
(33:07):
not a rule. You know, you can follow it, you know,
that's fine, But a better guide is to again assess
your goals the vibe you're after. Do you want to
simplify and streamline that exterior look of your home. If
that's the case, you know, paint the shutters the same
color as the door, or if you want to bring
in kind of a third color, make them a little
bit darker, a shade darker than the door. You know,
(33:28):
keep everything in the same family, maybe just a little
bit darker. That's going to help streamline the look. It's
going to simplify the exterior a little bit. If you're
hoping to infuse a little interest or some whimsy or
energy or whatever you want to call it, you know,
infuse that into the exterior. Then of course, feel free
to vary the colors of the shutters and doors, and
sometimes even vary them dramatically. All right, so that's shutters
(33:50):
and doors. Now final thoughts. You know, I'm sorry, this
whole last segment is kind of just a it's a hodgepodge.
It's like a buffet. Pick and choose what you like.
I've got some final thoughts and then we'll wrap it
all up. First thing is this, don't rush when it
comes to choosing your color schemes. Take your time with
the samples, take your time finding inspiration. If you're feeling pressured,
(34:12):
you know, sometimes by a painter, by a designer, by yourself.
A lot of the times it's us, you know, our
own selves, who are our own worst enemies. You're pushing
yourself to get the answer, to come up with a solution.
Just try to give yourself a break if it's somebody
else pushing you. You know. I understand there are timelines,
there are deadlines, and they're going to need certain colors
(34:33):
by certain times, but if you're feeling rushed, just try
to find a way to slow it down a little bit.
Nobody makes good decisions when you're feeling rushed, So keep
that in mind and be sure. Along these same lines,
as you're looking at all these colors and thinking about
which way you want to go, remember that you should
be looking at your colors in different lighting conditions throughout
(34:53):
different times of the day before you make that final choice.
You know, don't land on a color, look at it
in the afternoon on the side of the house and
call it good. Make sure you give yourself that extra
time to see it in the morning, to see it
in the evening, and just make sure that when the
lighting changes that color is still exactly what you want.
All right, along these same lines, still talking about colors here,
(35:15):
be sure that you check out Benjamin Moore's color Portfolio app.
I know everybody and their brother has an app, and
it gets to be a little much after a while,
but the Benjamin Ward Color Portfolio app is really worth
downloading if you've got paint projects coming up. It's going
to give you access to all of their fan decks,
so you can view colors easily right on your phone.
But you can also test out colors on various exteriors
(35:39):
on the app itself. They've got a few, you know,
maybe four preloaded house exteriors that you can try the
colors out on. You can also take pictures of your
own home and upload that. But even if you use
their stock photos, you definitely can get a good idea
of how colors look together, which is cool. But it's
also going to give you a good idea of how
a given color looks much lighter outside. You know, we
(36:00):
talked about that earlier, that colors outside can look two
to three shades lighter. You're going to see a lot
of that in this app. So it's definitely a great
tool to have if you're getting ready to start an
exter your your painting project, or really honestly any painting project.
Download it and check it out. It's free. It's the
Benjamin war Color Portfolio app. You can find it where
you find your apps. All right, next thing, be careful
(36:22):
about getting opinions you know we all do it, and
we often all need to go get outside thoughts. But
if you do that, if you go that route when
it comes to your exterior colors, I'd recommend that you
get one or maybe at most to other people whose
design opinions you really admire. Don't get many more people
than that, because too many opinions usually makes making that
(36:43):
decision a little bit harder. Moving on, remember we're here
to help at Repcolite as well. You know, we've got
people at every single Repcolite location who are trained and
ready to walk you through this process. So bring your photos,
bring your samples, bring anything that you think will help
and will go over your specific situation with you and
help you make the best color choices possible. Finally, last thing,
(37:04):
I've got, get the right paint. You know, whether you
hire a contractor or whether you do the project yourself,
you as the homeowner, you've got the power to choose
the paint that you want on your home. Benjamin Moore.
Exterior paint products are going to excel when it comes
to performance and durability. You know or Exterior Regal select
Exterior their top of the line products. You're not going
to find better out there. Benjamin Moore's Element Guard. It's
(37:26):
also a great product, and it's claim to fame is
really interesting. If we get rain even just an hour
after the product was applied, it's still going to be fine.
That's unheard of in the industry. It's a really great
safety net if you're painting in the early spring or
the late fall when weather is a little more unpredictable. Now,
another thing to consider with Benjamin Moore products is that
(37:47):
it's not just the quality of the paint that you're getting.
You're also getting products that are tinted. With Benjamin Moore's
gen X Colorance, this is kind of geeky stuff. It's
a little bit nerdy, it's a little bit boring, and
I don't often talk about them on the show, but
gen X Colorance they're designed to enhance the durability and
color retention of exterior paints, especially in harsh weather conditions.
These colorants are going to help exterior paints resist fading, cracking,
(38:10):
and peeling, and it ensures that the chosen color stays
true for a much longer time. So Benjamin Moore paint products,
they're tried and true. They're going to give you long
lasting color and protection and durability for your home. Ask
for them. But don't forget about Repcolite products either. We
make them in Holland. Most of you already know that,
and we've been doing it for over seventy six years now.
(38:30):
So we've got it down and we've got a great
exterior option called Endura, and as a bonus, we tint
it with another high performance colorant system that's going to
give performance similar to Benjamin Moore's gen X Colorance. So
whatever you pick, Benjamin Moore or Repcolite, just make sure
you get the best paint you can all right. That's
going to do it. That's all the time we've got.
We're going to wrap it up. If you want to
catch it again, you can find it online at repcolit
(38:52):
dot com. Whatever you do today makes your paints a
part of it. And remember the next project you tackle
is way easier than you think. Stop out at your
nearest Repcolite and let us help. Have a great weekend everybody,
and I'll see you next week. I'm Dan Hansen. Thanks
for listening.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com