Hey, lets cut em' a break! In the dead of winter, every yard looks like it needs yard work. I love these houses.

yes! i live in a beautiful, colorful neighborhood. most of the houses are painting bright colors, or they are brown with bright colors on the door and windows.

the condo i moved into.....well, it's a pretty ugly drab neutral with no colorful accents. and we can't convince the other units to paint. :( it looks pretty lame in contrast to the houses around us.

I was thinking about house colors just this weekend when we drove by a newish neighborhood where every house was a (slightly) different shade of beige. Yes, it was inoffensive, but it was also really boring.

I just had my house painted last November. I was having a difficult time picking colors, so decided to check out my neighbors' house colors within a couple of blocks.

I would never pick my house color based on the homes around me. Ugly colors, terrible taste.

The paint gods must have heard me, because I found my fantastic colors at Kelly Moore. My house looks terrific, it really stands out on the block (but not because the colors are bright). I'm very proud of it.

I can't help but be reminded of the rows of pastel houses in the movie "Edward Scissorhands". Perhaps you could do a feature on them sometime.

We're on a historical brick rowhouse block (Philly), so it's just doors-window frames-shutters for painting. And yes, we looked a bit at our neighbor's door -- stopsign red, with white trim. We did medium purply-aubergine with yellow ochre trim. Some other neighbors both did the same colonial blue-grey, and it just didn't look right -- the visual rhythm of the block demands each door be a little bit different.

I definitely took it into consideration. I probably would have chosen the same color as one of my neighbors, but thought it would look odd to have two of the same color houses in a row.

we live on a wonderful little cul-de-sac where each house is a different color--i'd never have thought of dr. seuss, but love where we live:

http://www.realestateiii.com/images/new_construction/drvid_night.gif

I'd definitely check out the neighbors before painting. There are a number of beige exteriors with red doors and shutters combinations in my neighborhood that makes me feel like no one else does, though.

if i had a home i wouldn't want it to clash. but i wouldn't want it to be beige either.

One of my favorite places for color is 12th place in DC.


Take a stroll starting at 12th Pl and W- head north. It's a fun block that doesn't take itself too seriously- check out that first place on the right!

The color of our neighbor's houses only eliminates a few options for me, but it doesn't help decide on what we should pick. Across the street is an almost-mint green house, so I don't think we can paint green. Next door is white. Growing up, our next door neighbor and the three houses behind us were all white, so I think we won't go that route.

I've always wanted a blue house, and thankfully none of the close by houses are blue.

I moved on to a block of Tudor Revivals and they all have have the same brown trim with varying shades of off white for the body.

We need to paint ours but I'm having a tough time just falling in line. I'd love to update the pallet without clashing with the rest of the neighborhood.

My house fits in with the neighborhood -- white house, light gray roof, medium gray foundation and steps, and a red door. The house next door, which is identical in design, was painted a dark olive with a black door and window frames and white trim everywhere else. A similar house down the block copied that look when they went to update the colors from yellow with orange trim.

The neighborhood doesn't have an HOA or a preferred colors list, but there are a lot of midcentury ranches and bungalows so bright colors are common.

Was it necessary to say the houses could use some yard work? If you live in Kansas City, you know it's bone-chilling cold. I live in Lawrence and there's no way I'm doing any yard work.

This is quite relevant to us, as we closed yesterday on a new house that desperately needs painting. So, yes, we plan considering the neighbors' houses when we choose paint, if only because we don't want to paint our house exactly the same as one two doors down. Which is unlikely, as we're leaning toward French blue with a yellow front door and ivory shutters. Feels like most houses in our area are white with vari-colored shutters and doors. One of my favorite color combinations was on a large Victorian in New Haven. The entire house, including all shutters, trim, and porch, was painted a charcoal gray, with a pumpkin-colored front door. I adored that house when I lived there and made excuses to pass it.

I live in Alaska and we are not known for our color. Last year we bought a house in a nice little older neighborhood and started the project of painting. I didn't take my neighbors in to consideration but I don't believe I went to over the top either. Just nice bright classic blue and yellow with cream trim. The inside however is a different story....its completely mine and chalk full of color color COLOR.

You have to look at where you live too. The city I live in here in SoFlo only allows homeowners to pick 1 of 5 colors (you have to get a permit from the city to paint and must bring a chip before they'll allow it) because anything really outrageous will probably lead to some kind of ghetto....gawd. These are the same people who want to follow another city in fining guys who wear droopy drawers (if they don't pay the fine, they're going to jail). Gotta love America!! Free to be....your crazy self.

Our Chicago neighborhood is the nerve center for the Latin King street gang (whose main gang color is yellow). Despite how cheerful and stylish our porch would look painted yellow against the graystone of the building, I simply cannot bring myself to do it. I don't want there to be the slightest impression that we support/condone the Kings' criminal behavior.

Alas, we went with a boring muted color that is neither a color of the Kings nor their enemy gangs.

The joys of inner city life.

No way. All of our neighbors have horrible beige vinyl siding. Granted, part of our little bungalow has white vinyl siding but the front is wonderful red painted cedar shingles. We're going to update the red this spring. I also have a turquoise and black mailbox and art deco house numbers. It's safe to say we're one of the few (if not the only) "art/design" houses on the block.

I will defend until my last breath my right to paint my house any color I please... and for my neighbors to do the same.

We built our home on the edge of a blah-beige neighborhood (although they did very the shades of beige, I suppose), so my original desire of bright barn red went out the window. We settled on a nice dark green, which we love, but I still can't help but think how awesome my house would have been red... Now the newer homes building on the other side of us are taking our cue and going for more interesting (yet still 'safe') colors. At least it's color!

I painted my little cottage hot pink/magenta, with bright white trim and a chartreuse door. It's dwarfed by the big blah house next door, but to me it's like a little spot of sunshine in the neighborhood. I couldn't stand coming home to something dull every day in dreary Seattle.

When I moved, I decided to combine white for the main building and deep grey, with a touch of blue, for the extension. My neighbour saw the sample on the wall and told me it would look like a prison, but it´s a great combination to live next to the sea, as we do.

@withani, I love 12th Place! Thanks for the Google street tour.

NDprairiegirl: I'm shooting for *bright barn red* also when we rip off the yucky white vinyl siding from our 200-year old farmhouse! When that green is ready for an update, I say GO for it!

Moved into our house recently and it's the same color as the house next door--even the trim!! And I mean the exact color! We are getting it repainted soon (it needs repainting anyway).

If you don't want to adversely effect property values (including your own) you'd BETTER think about the neighbors! If you add fuschia siding on a street of white colonials, you will probably be very sorry! You don't have to match but aim to harmonize.

We are in a six unit subdivision, the last house to be built, had to go with some of the builder's defaults for them to sell to us... so we couldn't get the Hardieboard siding we wanted and were given samples of vinyl to choose from. One house was already light yellow, one a slightly darker yellow, one beige, one sage green, one warm light gray... we chose a new medium tone green leaning toward teal. (We would have liked the sage green, but since that's directly across the street, we couldn't do it...)

Harmonize, sharmonize. Life's way too short not to sing your own tune.

Hello! I am here trying to figure out what fun/whimsical colors we can paint the exterior of our tiny row house. One reader in this section already commented on our colorful block (12th place in DC) and if you scroll down the street on
google maps you can see ours halfway down the block. It is the light yellow one on the left with the purple door. There is a girl, her baby and dog ;) hanging out front on the stoop. I am thinking a periwinkle/blue combo - and i like the feeling of some of these.

here

here