It entirely depends on the type of house, the materials it's made from, and then the general character of the neighbourhood.

I've been told by painting contractors that white is popular because it's the least expensive paint to buy, and it's far easier to patch in between complete paintings with white than trying to match a deep colour.

White is SO much better than the horrible olive/puke green I see so often.

When I was looking to buy a house, I was always drawn to the white houses with red doors or the yellow houses. There's this amazing house on my ex husband's road that is the prettiest robins egg blue. It looks soooo pretty against the bright green of the grass and their white Adirondack chairs with red and white polka dot cushions. It's my new favorite.

I love white houses. I grew up and live in New England. Most every town had it's green surrounded by frosted white Victorians, an elegant white church with a towering steeple, and in my case a beautiful white 18th century library.

They looked fresh in the swealtering summers and crisp against the fall colors.

My husband nagged me until I painted our house a color.
He is NOT from New England.

Everything was quite white and homogeneous until a book came out in the 60's or 70's called "The Painted Ladies of San Francisco" referring to the wild color combinations used on the Victorians that town.

Sad. Sniff.

Our house is red brick with butter yellow siding and forest green trim. The interior doors and trim were also painted butter yellow. I can't stand butter yellow, or any yellow really. It's an abrasive color.

Originally I was hoping to repaint all of the siding white, but now I'm rethinking maybe doing a sandy brown or sage green with bright white trim. White starts to look dirty pretty quickly, but I do think it looks very clean and crisp when it's new.

Blue! We're repainting this summer. Not faded, country blue; more like a denim blue.

The house we bought is grey, and had a red door. Just like the corner house on the next block, and the one behind us. Totally not unique, and kinda blah.

I'm way over the red door thing.

The two houses in-between us and one of the other grey houses are both white. It's a very boring stretch of street.

My last house was 'banana split' yellow, with a 'sapphire' blue door and white trim, when we were selling it everyone LOVED the color combo. My new house is light grey with a 'new penny' front door and 'spring stream' shutters. I love this color combo!!

I have to respond to pureevil's comment, for two reasons.
One because I used to have a white home with a red front door, and it was lovely. Then we painted the house yellow with a periwinkle blue front door, and it was also lovely. We liked it so much that we repeated the yellow/blue scheme on our current house, and we get lots of compliments.

Two because I also love the homes I see that are robin's egg blue! That is the one color I see trending the most the days. I call it "Tiffany blue," but robin's egg is a similar color. I think it looks fresh, modern, and really great.

I also agree with the first commenter who said the color of the home depends on the neighborhood it's in. My 'hood has lots of bungalows from the 1950s, and the trend around here is to paint them lively colors with coordinating trim and doors. I love it. It's like a basket of easter eggs all over the neighborhood. Pink, yellow, pale blue, green, even a purple house. It's great!

my house is white. it had forest green shutters and a forest green door.

while i did paint the front door red (*blush*), the shutters are now black.

i do love colour and get a smile every time i see photos of St. John's, Newfoundland where bright colours are the norm for homes...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stueyh/3724107201/

i think my neighbours would have a fit if i decided to do that to the outside of my house!

A New England house on "This Old House" tv show was being fixed up. It was a very old wooden house, and was white. They dug down through the many layers of paint, and underneath it all, it was originally painted ochre. They had to have the color approved by the town's historic board. The board turned it down, even though it was historically correct. They just didn't like it. Hypocrites.

If you live in places where there's snow 8 months of the year, painting your house white makes it blend right in. Depends if that's what you want, I guess. :)

I see a lot of shades of brown and beige whenever a new subdivision pops up. Beige, everywhere!

My house is white and I'd like to keep it that way. I just moved in there, but when I can afford to make more cosmetic changes I plan on replacing the front door with one that is a vibrant color!

I just painted the back of ours a tarnished-silver color while my husband was gone for the day. It had been pale grey, but I really love the deeper tone. The trim will eventually all be white and our door is an eggplanty color for now, but it might go lighter once I finish the front of the house.

I agree with Frank Lloyd Wright when it comes to houses fitting the landscape (hence the "prairie style" working so well in midwest and parts of California.) Houses should work with nature, so the colors should be inspired by its natural surroundings.

Our house is currently California Blah (Beige) with Padre Brown trim. I hate it. I'm waiting for my moment of weakness when I will go to pick up the paint to shroud it in a beautiful sage green. I love green. But it has to be the right green.

Thanks, lorigami, for the support of my inclination toward stealth improvement projects. Good on you for your independence to accomplish what needs to be done!

As for the white as house dressing--Depends on the circumstance and how the owner of the structure feels about it. To each his/her own.

my dream house would be Turquoise with a red door or Royal blue with a red door

I love a dark grey house (wood shakes) with white trim.

The house we're currently buying is pretty limited to colour schemes though. It has a bright green roof and white wood siding. It's a 150 year old farmhouse so can't get too crazy with the colours.

Due to rising temperatures and electricity bills, white probably will continue to be popular. I have only two things against it. First, it shows every speck, and dirt is a constant outside. Mildewcide paint additives help. Second, it's rarely accompanied by interesting trim and accent colors, and landscaping, that would set it off well.

Ugh.
*shivers*

My parents built their new house in 1998, right at the beginning of that housing boom. Every house in the older part of the neighborhood has some good color to it, as there was a homowner's association regulation stating that you couldn't have the same color house as your neighbor (or any home you could see from your driveway, or something like that).

Now what happened to that regulation, I don't know, but the new part of the neighborhood is all BEIGE and WHITE. And it makes me want to barf with its suburban banality.

I love the neighborhood I'm living in right now, where houses were built in the 40s or 50s and no two are the same color (there's maybe 2 white or beige houses on the street), and I run along the Mississippi where all the houses are covered in brick or painted beautiful, rich tones to represent the beautiful home and the rich people living there.

Also, driving through a white/beige neighborhood in winter on a sunny day hurts the eyes. I wish more people considered that in painting their house.

first, I grew up in a pink house.
When we moved on to our street all of the houses were white, save two brick structures and one pale blue. We painted the front door pickle and the porch ceiling is a traditional robin's egg blue.
For a long time I fantasized about covering my home in dark shingles, but over the past year so many of my neighbors have painted. I'm no longer the 5th white house on the left but wedged between green and kahki. There is also a deep red a dark grey a bit more blue. The house across the street is being flipped right now. I can't wait to see what color they paint it.
I still don't like my vinyl siding, but I've really taken to the white.

LaDonnaNichole, I have that: S-W Burma Jade walls with an S-W Enticing Red front door. The trim is S-W Pearl Gray; a darker, medium gray would have worked better. The architectural style is postwar tract ranch bungalow with a naturally gray galvanized roof. I'm happy with the colors, and they get lots of compliments. They wouldn't work in most neighborhoods or with most architectural styles, though.

When we bought our bungalow, it had white siding that was worn down to bare aluminum in some places. We painted it Sherwin Williams' Roycroft Brass (a greenish brown) with Birdseye Maple trim (light yellow)--BIG improvement. It blends in with the trees and the brick front porch a lot more now than when it was the "big white eyesore on the corner."

I agree that it totally depends on the type of house.

I agree that beige is by far the worst color for a house, and unfortunately, maybe the most common. White and gray are also very common, but I think they can look more interesting than beige, depending on what colors they are paired with. I have noticed that green is also becoming popular, which I can't really understand because it tends to blend into the landscaping. My favorite colors for a house include yellow, and deep royal blues and purples. I love the color orange, and there is an awesome house in my town painted a very vibrant dark orange. I just am not sure if I could be brave enough to have an orange house!

i recently did a renovation on my 1850 townhouse in DC. I painted it black -- one one side is an imposing brick house with a black door and white trim. On the other is a super whimsical yellow and white frame house with black shutters. My house is wood, so I selected black to bridge the colors between the two, and the weight of the brick against the relative lightness of the wood. It's gorgeous.

I live in New England, now. Our house has vinyl siding (requirement of the condo complex builder, not my preference) in a darkish teal green. Black shutters and door, white trim. It's fine, and no painting, ever.

The complex over the fence has nothing but white or pale pale yellow or pale pale blue. Pretty boring. (No two houses in ours are the same, at least.)

My favorite color for houses might be sage green in different tones. I saw a lovely house once that had that with a lavender door and, if I remember correctly, light blue shutters.

But there are fascinating ones around here: one that stands out is a vivid hyacinth blue-violent color! I'm not sure it works well on that house, but it's an eyecatcher none the less!

But white has it's reasons. It's cheaper, easier to patch, reflects heat in summer, "safe", and it doesn't fade. A lot of houses used to be painted with colors that the sunlight washed out almost TO white over time. Meaning you'd need to repaint more often.

I once saw a denim-blue house flashing from behind pine trees while driving through Michigan. The contrast between the green grass and dark blue is enchanting and different but not oddball. I've dreamt about it ever since; can't wait for my own house!

I grew up in a peachy pink house, and it was beautiful. There's a rowhouse near my apartment that is hot pink with slate gray trim, and it looks absolutely terrific. I wouldn't necessarily paint a brick house that still has the original brick, but if you happen to buy a house that is already painted, I say the bolder the better.

All of these comments are inspiring... we just bought a house and it is tan with tan trim. Very boring. When we get around to re-painting (not in the budget just yet) I'll be sure to post here for suggestions. It's hard because it is a marina-style stucco home in San Francisco, so although I like the white paint with a red door, it just won't do for our style of house.

I love a white cottage home with black shutters and a red door. Of course if it comes with a wide front porch and a porch swing, even better.

We are prepping to paint our home, and I am going white on everything, except the front door and trim just around the front door. Thats gonna be bright orange-y golden yellow....not sure what the name of that color would be. The beadboard under the porch, sky blue.

I love dark colored homes, but with a heavy southern exposure on our 1920's home (w/ no insulation) here in the Southern California sun - we'd just be asking for trouble.

When the outside temperature is above 100F for 8 months a year, white with pale trim both helps to keep the house cool and to retard the inevitable paint flaking. However, it's much more important to have a light-colored roof. In the heating parts of the country, I'd expect dark walls and roofs.

On a related note, when you fly into an airport and look at the parking lots - the color of the cars really varies from north to south!

GOLDENPOPPY, sounds great. Is the roof included in your plans? If so, consider shiny white liquid sealants that insulate roofs well enough to reduce electricity bills. Your painter would know their names.

P.S. I shouldn't have used the word 'insulate." They work by reflecting, like most white paints, but more so.

White with same color trim; wooden door; shake roof. It all goes nicely with lots of green trees and landscaping.

In the Pacific Northwest, I see lots of greys and dark browns, which always seem kind of gloomy to me with the type of weather we have. I like the brighter houses. There is an orange one in our neighborhood and a nice olive green with brown-black trim that I am partial to as well.
Our current house came grey/taupe with off-white trim. We painted our front door is a light steel blue which goes nicely with the taupe--but I wouldn't normally pick that color.

I live in the PNW too. We bought a house last year, and I think 95% of the houses we looked at were some shade of blue - blueish gray. Oceanyblue. Denim. Sky blue. Pale blue. I want to be Really Different and paint our (blue) house turquoise but, well, turquoise is basically a shade of blue.

I assumed it was because we don't have very blue skies, people like to overcompensate with blue houses.

My Austin neighborhood has lots of mid-century homes and bungalows with different types of exterior materials (brick, wood, vinyl, stone) and lots of different color combinations. Mine is one of the more traditional color combos -- white with gray trim and a red door. The house next door (identical in style) is a dark olive with white trim and a black door. Neighbors around the corner recently painted their brick ranch a slate blue with sky blue trim and an orange door. Generally the rule seems to be "the more color, the better."

I was playing with the Sherwin-Williams online exterior palette guide. Two "foolproof" yet potentially unusual basic palettes came up many times. Each version had variations of the three colors--wall, trim, and accent. One palette was a gray, a white, and a blue, and the other was a gray, a white, and a green.

The best house door color I ever saw wasn't a typical red. It was a rich, glossy, radish plum-red. It was on a sweet natural beige & gray stone house, & it looked awesome with their late spring garden of daffodils and their Japanese Maple tree.

Mr. Pine's Purple House ... one of my favorite books from childhood.
All about Mr. P trying to make his house look different from everyone else's and everyone else trying to make their houses look like Mr. P's.

I have heard that certain colors detract burglars. Yellow due to its peaceful tone discourages robberies. Grey encourages crooks, perhaps due to its relation to sophistacation and art.

I'm looking for a yellow for my depression era California farmhouse surrounded by wood house stuccoed over and painted boring beige. LOL