apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Call me crazy...
...I like it the way it is.

Only thing I would change is the porch decking - If that's grey-painted concrete, I'd consiter tiling over w/ slate.

I'm with bepsf, exactly.

I think you have two options:
Either keep the wood shingles in that finish and paint the stucco a softer more brownish or mustardy or custardy color to compliment them...
Or you paint the shingled part of the house and the and the stuccoed parts the same color - which could be anything that will work with the siding...
And can you maybe paint the siding?

I'm confused - what are we talking about painting here?

It looks like you need a new roof?? can't really tell from the picture. If that's the case, you can satisfy your creative yayas with a lovely light slate or a beautiful red shingle!!

Dark gray could work. I wouldn't paint the shingles though -- the weathered look is part of their charm.

paint the cedar shingles white, or leave them as they are, and leave the house white. to go with the stucco, tile over the porch with big red mexican tiles.

Your shingles give the home great character! The black trim looks great and light pea green shade would be a beautiful contrast with the shingles on the stucco. The front step could be painted black and sealed to be so pretty with a fun outdoor rug. Good luck, please post when finished.

It's not bad as is but I think it would look more grounded if it were a slightly darker color--maybe an earthy green shade like sage. Personally I think I'd paint the stucco first and see how it looks. I think you may be able to get away with not painting the shakes on the top. It would probably pull it all together if you did paint them though.

Can you paint your window sashes? Painting those something less stark than the white would look nice. If they are vinyl, vinyl-safe paints exist that won't damage the windows.

I like it as it is. It's beautiful.

For the sake of all that's good and holy, don't paint the shingles!!!!!!!!

Ok, now that I have that out of my system, I actually like the colors as is. If you want to change, I could see the porch painted black or very dark green with the current scheme. If you want to chance the stucco, I think a light blue-grey might be nice, but your next-door neighbor might have cornered that market. I also think the sage suggestion is good--but I'd stay away from any sage color that was too brown or yellow, and I definitely wouldn't do the house in tan/brown/mustard--I think you would get an all-over drab look, kind of blah and putrid.

Cute house!

oh, typos--by "shingles" I mean shake, and by "chance" I mean change. :)

Please do not paint the shingles.

The best thing you can do to unify the exterior, is to repaint the stucco with a warmer tone from white. Think canvas or a very light tan, cream, something with a little warmth that will look great with the wood of the shingles and the front door, the brown tones of the roof, and soften the contrast with the black trim.

For the porch, take whatever shade you use for the exterior and darken it to a richer shade of tan/brown. Stay in the same family and keep it fairly light, you want the porch to seem brighter than darker.

For stucco, buy the best paint you can afford, and by best I mean best coverage, Benjamin Moore Aura Exterior is a really great product, so are some of the other low VOC exterior paints.

Hope that helps.

Farrow & Ball's "Light Grey"

I like it the way it is. For the porch, you could consider a stone like slate or flagstone (something gray) instead of just paint.

You... you own this amazing house? I hate you. In a good way.

What climate are you in? I know that here in the upper Midwest, painting stucco is a bad idea - it is a porous masonry material that needs to breathe, plus with the winters the paint just will just chip off and look bad in a few years. Maybe ask a masonry guy before doing this?

I agree with some previous posters, the color is really very nice as is. Some bright (red? orange?) porch furniture would be a nice accent, though.

I will have to strongly agree with hyzen and the other posters who beg you don't paint the shingles.

I would strongly suggest doing a bit of research to find out the accurate period colors of the home would be, even what it's original color was. If you're surrounded by 1880s Victorians, you don't want to look like the ignorant homeowner in a row of historic homes.

While, I can see where you feel your house is a bit drab, especially compared to the vibrant home next door, like KkatMpls said, pick some bright furniture (deep reds/red-orange, golden yellow).

Here's an article I found, although, it doesn't give exact color choices, it does give you some good advice: "so long as you follow the Craftsman themes of simplicity and harmony with nature you'll capture the spirit of the movement and have a beautiful home as well"

http://www.craftsmanperspective.com/advice/exterior.html

The front door....you just need a better one. Paint it yellow, orange, or red. It looks like you have a wooden screen door? Paint it a different color than the door.

Add some furniture to bring out that color.

Beautiful..... Paint it black with burgundy trim. Trust me! What area in New York has those style houses?

My ongoing big project is stuccoing the block walls of my basement, planning to put a final coat of white stucco tinted with pigment to blend with the color of painted Hardie plank above it. I read that stucco needs to breath and putting paint on just seems wrong. If that is true for the upper midwest, it would be the same elsewhere. ??

It is a lovely home, and looks to be a less elaborate single-style craftsman.

I want to cry though -- whoever slapped the stucco on the house was seriously misguided and has "remuddled" the house. Stucco doesn't belong on that style of house, which is the root of your predicament: you are trying to deal with a huge expanse of not only inappropriate colour, but also inappropriate material/texture.

I would go to the local archives, and try to find pictures of your street to see what it used to look like original before the unfortunate renovations. I suspect it either had wood siding or shingles on the bottom. Would be good to see what was on those columns too (some craftsman houses had the bottom of the porch columns made of river rock, as well as the chimneys).

Also, check out books on craftsman houses to get a better sense of the colour and use of materials.

Needless to say, the "trim" and fascia are travesties against the style of the house, and I would rip them off without hesitation.

You have a real gem of a home, and it deserves to be rescued. It won't take that much to undo all the unfortunate remuddlings and restore it to its original splendour. Once you've done that, it won't seem intimidated by its more imposing neighbours.

Good resources for you to check out are:

http://www.oldhousejournal.com/

As well as the offerings of the National Park Service:

http://www.nps.gov/hps/tps/online_ed.htm

Good luck!

As far as I can tell shes not talking about painting the shingles - shes talking about painting the stucco - all the white walls

I have no suggestions but I have to say I love next doors blue and red combination!

Two bits of hearsay...

1. A contractor I met recently explained that if stucco has never been painted before (and only if) you're probably better off not painting. Lots of people in the 1900-1920s stucco-d houses instead of using siding in order to have a finish that would basically never need paint (until they got tired of the look of stucco and painted it... and had to keep painting it every year).

2. A designer I know (who is getting on in her years) told me yesterday people used to use pool paint on stucco.

Thanks for your suggestions, everyone! You gave me a lot to think about. I will try to post an update when the project is complete. I don't intend to paint the cedar shingles but to clean and seal them to protect the natural color. Some of you might be interested to know that the area where you see the three adjoining windows on the second floor used to be an open porch, which the previous owners enclosed. I do plan to rip off all the aluminum capping over the window trim eventually but can't afford to be surprised by what's underneath just now (which I know is kelly green trim, probably in bad repair). By the way, I live in a western suburb of Philadelphia.