Everyone knows white is the “safest” color—especially if you are selling your house. But color can enhance a home, and is worth the risk of venturing beyond white.

Color can make your home look its best by: 

•   Drawing a house closer to the street or making it appear farther back. 
• Attracting the eye to the front door to create a welcoming feeling. 
• Enhancing architectural detail or downplaying flaws. 
• Creating the appearance of architectural details that aren’t there.  
• Making your house appear larger, cozier, more stately or more summery and bright.   

The three elements: Main Color, Trim, and Door
Generally, you will choose three colors: two complements or two monochromatic hues, and one contrast color. Examples: 

• A deep yellow house with the palest of yellow trims and a slate blue door. 
• A deep rose house with white trim in the pink family and a deep sage-green door and window sashes. 
• A traditional combination for a cottage or bungalow is a white house with black trim and a red door. 

Whatever combination you choose, think of two blends and one contrast. Even conservative colors can create a sense of cheerfulness and order, such as beige, crisp white, and hunter green.

If you’re not a whiz with color, we’ll give you some guidelines here (Of course, there are exceptions to every rule.) You can also ask your franchise manager for some help.

Color and space
Color can affect perceived size and space. Think about how you want your house to appear from the street, and how it will look in relation to lot size and landscaping.

Lighter colors:  

• White makes a house look larger. If your house is much smaller than the lot, a light color will give the home presence. 
• White also makes a house appear closer to the curb. So if you feel that your house is lost behind the trees, draw it forward with light colors. 

Darker colors: 

• Dark colors will make a home appear farther away. If you feel that your front yard is too small, think of “pushing your house back” with deeper color.
• Dark colors make your home appear smaller. If your house is built close to the edge of your lot, or if it has very little landscaping around it, you may want to choose deeper, richer colors; otherwise, your home may appear too big or “blank.” Richer colors can also make a boxy house look cozier.

Bringing it into proportion
How large is your house? Do you have an addition?
Painting the upper half of a tall house a deep color will make the house appear shorter. This is a good idea if you want:

• To minimize the “hulking” appearance of some top-story additions.  
•  To bring a tall houses in proportion with a small lot.
• To keep a house with young landscaping from looking too exposed and unadorned. 

Conversely, painting the bottom half a darker color will make the house feel “rooted.”

Consider the size of your house in relation to the lot: light colors make a house appear larger, dark colors smaller. So think about which way you want to “cheat” the perceived size of the house.

Reflecting light
Painting trim white (and keep in mind that the palest shade of any color effectively looks white) reflects the sun’s light and heat.

Accentuate the positive
Focus on the things you love about your house—and maybe even find new ones:

• You might find that you’d feel better about your front porch if you added some color or more contrast or brightness.
• If you’re not crazy about the trim on your house, consider choosing a low contrast between house color and trim, and then drawing people’s eye toward the front or garage door with glossy and/or pigment-rich colors.
  
  Example:
  * Paint the house beige, pale yellow or light dove grey.
  * Paint the trim white.
  * Look for other areas to accentuate with black, red, or green, such as garage door details, front door, or window sashes.

The idea is to choose muted, low-contrast colors to downplay features, and then play up other features with rich color and high contrast.

How to choose

• Drive through neighborhoods or scrutinize houses you like in magazines.
• Consider the similarities and differences between the houses you like and the one you have. Consider how to apply what you see to your own home. 
• Consider landscaping, climate, materials, architecture. Terra cotta may be your favorite color, but it may look better on a stucco Mediterranean house than your wooden home near pine trees. In that case, perhaps choose a light terra cotta or muted peach.
• Look at paint chips OUTSIDE in the light at various times of the day. Bright sun washes out colors, which is why bright colors look better in sunbelt climates.

A few other points

• Color looks darker on textured surfaces with heavy shadows, such as bat and board, clapboard and shingles.
• Paint dries darker, so if you are painting color swatches on your house, wait until it dries before deciding if you like it.
• Keep in mind your surroundings and architectural “climate.” Avoid clashing with the houses around you, and never clash with your roof or bricks! And consider the climate you live in: desert colors look great…in Tucson.