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I think I just heard the resale value falling through the floor...

Caribbean colors can work in hot climates, or for funky San Francisco Victorians. Anywhere else, I'd avoid them.

I don't know...I think the colors are kinda cute. :) I would definitely do this to my own home (if I owned one, that is.)

www.twasthebrillig.blogspot.com

I kinda dig the pink trim but, not the lavender.

I think you can do pink or purple, but not both.

It does have a certain Key West feel, and I do think it works with the style of the house. On the other hand, the owners aren't the ones who have to look at it all the time--the neighbors do. It's not my favorite color combination, but it is at least original.

Those are not the shades of either color I would have chosen, unless I was painting an icecream parlor.

But pink and/or purple could each look lovely in the right shades.

I really LOVE this colors. But NOT for outside paiting.

Kisses and success!!!

With white trim, either color would be fine as the body. Together they are Barbie's Durham Dream Crack House.

I mean, really, the paint is already starting to fade. Stick with yellow, white, light grey, or beige. "Good taste costs no more!"

Tenderleaf: HA! Hilarious.

I agree that each of the colors would have been great...as a trim color. It's too Candyland.

I wouldn't live in this house if you GAVE it to me unless I could have it painted before I moved in. AWFUL.

Not my taste, but it does show the owners care about the house. Paint always fades quickly in humid climates.

The owners of a townhouse in Richmond painted it this same color combo. Garnered a lot of anger, but the neighbors couldn't do anything about it -- especially since the owners were rich jewelers.

Not quite a painted lady.

When it comes time to sell it, it should be repainted...until then, if living in a pink and purple house makes them happy, why not? Isn't the purpose of design to make people like the spaces in which they live? And bright houses make me smile when I pass by them.

It needs a teal roof.
I like it, wish they'd touch up the paint on the stairs.
Adding some colorful flowers out front would go far... perhaps when summer comes....

This kind of color scheme is used a lot on larger houses in cities like New Orleans, Savannah, Mobile, or Charleston. I love it in those situations. I just don't know how well it works on a smaller craftsman in landlocked Durham. Not a huge fan.

This is heinous.

That is all.

I like it, especially if the owners have the personality to pull it off. Everyone says that things have to be white & fit into a certain climate. What happened to imagination & creativity? If it's what makes the owners happy, then it's great! You only live once, why not try on these colors?!

It's not what I'd go with, probably, but I think it's a lot of fun. And I bet every day the owner comes home from work and is happy to see the house.

Maybe it's because I have a dreadful head cold and oxygen is not reaching my brain..but I kinda like it. It made me smile.

if only this house was in Malibu and I looked like Barbie

*weeps gently*

I kind of like it too, and I usually hate everything. Perhaps it makes a difference that this house at least looks like it was carefully painted.

I pity the neighbors.

I hate this almost as much as I hate mint green exteriors in Seattle. Mint green probably looks wonderful in Miami, but against a backdrop of evergreens it looks terrible.

Here is a house I painted in Austin during my brief stay there (2 months) while traveling across the US. The colors the owners chose... baby blue and pink. I can't tell from the photo if the pink is still there but its still baby blue. I did exterior paint contracting for a couple of years and this was the first house I had so many comments while painting it.

Google Maps Street View

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=30.281125,-97.720477&spn=0,359.998632&t=h&z=20&layer=c&cbll=30.281207,-97.720496&panoid=TJwQIJuh7EK6t3wm-0oipQ&cbp=12,89.37550881802443,,1,4.338235294117639

I used to drive by a house like this when I'd go home to visit my parents. I hated it then, and I hate it now.

For those of you not from Durham. The downtown area is undergoing a sorta revitalization. Lots of homes in the downtown area are being purchased and rehabbed.

That being said, while I'm not fond of the colors used. I kinda like it.

If the colors are in step with the neighborhood (ie Key West was a great example mentioned earlier) or the home is not visible from the street, than go for it.

There are plenty of colors that make me happy but that doesn't mean that my neighbors share the same sentiment. Part of being a good neighbor is consideration and compromise. If you like pink and purple..wonderful. Find a way to incorporate it into your home in a way inwhich you enjoy it and your neighbors can too.

Not what I'd want for myself, but it must bring the owner great joy. And who wants to live where the city or HOA dictates what color you can paint your house (xref: Santa Fe NM and half of the "new" developments in the country).

As for those green painted houses---green is the color of good luck or good fortune in many Asian cultures. To paint a house green is to bestow a blessing on the inhabitants.

In Durham, there's a very well-executed purple house on Chapel Hill Road near the Lakewood YMCA. It's a very dark aubergine with beige trim. Lovely.

Also, what is with AT DC always posting about Durham! Can we please get an AT further south? Then we can show off better examples of houses in North Carolina.

Little old houses are ideal for interesting paint schemes. Here's mine just after painting: house (man, the yard needs mowin' in this pic). It's often pointed out on the local Segueway tour.

This reminds me of a small town Ontario home I once saw, but this looks gorgeous and understated in comparison. The house I saw was actually those two colors, but extremely ornate woodwork was added to the trim (that viney victorian stuff with too much lattice) painted in multiple shades of pink, and it had this castle-tower like add on...

If anyone has seen True Stories (movie in the 80s with the Talking Heads) it makes me think of the cute obsessed woman that answered John Goodman's character's dating ad. Something screams single woman who never grew out of her Magical Princess Barbie faze.

wrong shades

To me, this is just a typical old house in a "transitional" neighborhood in the south - the colors are quirky, offbeat, maybe because the folks inside don't need or want to fit in with encroaching gentrification or just because the paint colors were on sale. It's not everybody's taste but you know that somebody is there taking care of that house - otherwise it would be faded and peeling, like many others that surround it. (PS, I live in Durham and moved here from Atlanta.)

This just looks wrong. I've never been a fan of using two or more bright colors on the exterior of a house. One color white trim (or white paint colored trim) looks so much better.

This looks a little pepto to me. Funny, I was just walking by a house in the Carriage Town neighborhood in Flint and this house has the same colors, just a little less pink

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahrazak/1394021105/in/set-72157602039359912/

There are cultural differences in regard to colors. People from Mexico sometimes paint their homes colors which are wildly inappropriate in the eyes of descendants of European countries. I think it's rather small-minded to talk about "taste" as if there was one sense of it and anyone who doesn't match one's own ideas is lacking in it.

We live in a culture that is affluent and overwhelmed, so we tend to want to value more sedate environments. If we lived in a simpler situation, or a different culture, we'd place a higher value on color. All the cool looking temples in Egypt which we think look beautiful now used to be garishly painted by today's standards of "taste". I encourage open-mindedness when looking at places like the one in this piece.

GHETTO

NOT Key West color tones as some others have suggested.

Those colors are suited for an extreme Victorian house with all the trimmings. It doesn't quite fit that home...sorry. There's a house nearby that is a lovely, except for the colors. It's a plain antique farmhouse, very simple in design, but it's painted with the most florescent, neon-like lavender color, with a deeper purple trim. Everytime I pass it, I think...what a shame. The color almost glows...makes the color of the home featured on this post conservative by comparison!

eyesore

some people are into shock value - which is best when accompanied by good taste

the pepto-pink trim actually adds a slightly ramshackle element to an otherwise cute house... the purple wouldn't be half bad if it was paired with white trim and black shutters

the purple is wonderful, but it needs some brown trim insted or yellow.

There was a house not far from here painted in similarly... interesting colors. Then the owners stapled stuffed animals all over the facade. I mean, all over. (Not solid -- artfully spaced.)

The family was known for incestuous inbreeding and mental deficiencies. (No, not joking.) Need I say more?

It wouldn't be nearly as bad if the pink trim were painted white. Even then though, it's like a cotton candy stand vomited all over the house.

i admire personal statements.
though i dont think the tones work well.