Advice on house colours

[tim360]

I'm looking for some advice on house colours for the exterior of a two story weatherboard house. It currently has a green roof, yellow/cream weatherboards and brown aluminium windows - yes a stunning combination !

We're currently thinking of at an Ironsand roof with Tea or Half Napa weatherboards (Resene colours). We don't want to go too dark, as many people with these types of windows seem to do.

Has anyone had any winning colour combinations with this sort of house in the past?

[WORKING BEE]

I'm looking for some advice on house colours for the exterior of a two story weatherboard house. It currently has a green roof, yellow/cream weatherboards and brown aluminium windows - yes a stunning combination !

We're currently thinking of at an Ironsand roof with Tea or Half Napa weatherboards (Resene colours). We don't want to go too dark, as many people with these types of windows seem to do.

Has anyone had any winning colour combinations with this sort of house in the past?

Hi. You don't necessarily have to create your colour scheme around the old brown coloured aluminium windows. It will cost you more of course but if you wanted an uncompromising new look then you could etch prime the aluminium and then apply the appropriate coating system in whatever colour you choose. Just get the right system sorted first. The chemists that work for the paint companies are usually quite obliging on the phone if you ask politely and explain what you are trying to achieve.

Either way, whether you retain the existing window colour or not, you should be able to find a paint supplier (I think Resene still do this ?) where you can view a computer generated finished colour scheme applicable for your house exterior. Maybe have a play with some different colours and see what it will likely end up looking like before lashing out with the time and $$$ to do the job ?

Best of luck and hope you are pleased with the end result !

[Traff]

House colours

PM me and I will give you our colour consultant at Resenes details - if you use there paint the consult will be free and she is great ( You can also get a good discount if you use our account - each property is different if you use the wrong colours it will loook sh.t..

Cheers

Mark

[spurner]

Ditto the above - use a colour consultant.

I recently repainted 8 properties and had a quick meeting with Resene. I had no idea what I wanted so just went with what she recommended on her last job, was very impressed with the before/after photos. I ended up doing all 8 properties in the same colour to keep purchasing simple and avoid waste. They were mostly from a similar era, but you can change what areas of each property you want to paint depending on its features. I used only 3 colours (windows, weatherboards and roof) to keep things simple again.

Colours were 1/8th stonewall, and bianca.

Below is 1 image which was created, showing half the property painted in the new colours.

[essence]

I've recently seen a house repainted from Peacock Blue (yummy - not!!) to MALTA (sorry, don't know which brand that is) and it had a dark green roof which worked reasonably well with it.

Depending on the shade of green of your roof you may get away with not painting it. However, in saying that, having a newly painted roof makes the property "come together" and gives it a new lease of life.

[drelly]

If you're an NZPIF member, you can get Dulux at trade prices from Guthrie Bowron.

Resene have an online paint program you can use here: http://www.resene.co.nz/ezypaint/tem...nline/Ezy.html

Spurner, are those flats an old Motel?

[whitt]

Ron Hoy Fong uses same colours across his fleet of houses too.
The colours look quite good and I have even used them myself.
You can search forums for his colour scheme ( and countless people who like it) but my notes I wrote and used recently are:


Exterior walls
-Stonington Beige ( ici colour mix I think)



Roof and trim and doors
-Resene Burnt Umber



Joinery/ window sills/ frames etc
-Quarter Spanish White

From memory concrete brick work or lower portion of house can be painted the Burnt umber too. But check first as I have not done that part myself.

[Cassandra]

Avoid dark colours- they abosrb more UV and as a consequence weather faster than light paints that reflect UV light from the sun

[dandan]

I've just tried a dark grey almost black colour on a few roofs using resene cool colours. With Cool colours you paint on a white undercoat then dark topcoat. The dark topcoat is said to be able to pass the UV through to reflect off the white undercoat to avoid heat build up. When I put my hand on a cool colour then on a standard of the same colour on a hot day I can feel the difference. I've seen this on another place, which was painted a year ago, and it looks fine. This is though said to be an unguaranteed system becuase it's only a few years old so use and investigate at your own risk.
I've been disappointed by reflections from neighbouring properties and trees changing the look of a colour Ive painted a house so I paint test patches on different parts of the house and review them at different times of the day in different weather. I've often had to change the shade of paint, which for example looks great on a sunny morning but too dull on a cloudy afternoon.

[whitt]

Just use quality paint that is guarenteed to last and perform in NZ conidtions then it won't matter the shade or roof temperature.

I stick with colours others have used rather than a colour chart etc. They look different in real life so if I can see a proven colour scheme I will go with that instead.

[Philmc1]

Iron sand and half Nappa or full Nappa look great.
Half tea right thru the interior is also very nice.

[Blind Egg]

But keep in mind: "you might like the colours of a friends house but will it look the same in your place?"
Colour consultants can help but to help see what colours you like?
What is the surrounding area look like?
Try a 1m2 test pot area of a colour and look at it at different times of the day before painting the area.
Use the gray card when you look at a colour chart.

[spurner]

Yes, how did you guess?!

Spurner, are those flats an old Motel?

[drelly]

Yes, how did you guess?!

Dad used to own/manage motels and the layout looked familiar. The sticky-out bit looks like the old reception entrance! I've wondered how many of these older motels are being converted to flats. I see a couple of local ones have gone that way in the past few years as newer motels have popped up.

[tim360]

Thanks all for your advice. I've tried using the Resene EzyPaint software but it's pretty terrible software to use, and the end result looks nothing like the actual colour.

A colour consultant of some sort seems to be the way to go.