TO BLING, or NOT TO BLING...

Trim choice is dictated largely by the body color of the house, and the overall architecture.

Basic color facts for exterior colors are that light colors appear to be lighter in visual weight (they "float"), and they also draw a far amount of attention (when carefully juxtaposed with the proper body color). 

Darker hues appear to have more visual density ("gravity"), and they tend, depending a few other factors, to relax away from the eye.

Bright hues tend to advance toward. Lighter colors with grayed tones (muddy as some call them) tend to retreat, and become neutral.

Skilled experts use color as a pawn of sorts, to emphasize or de-emphasize an architectural element, and coax certain elements of a house to behave in a manner that can make architecture features do tricks!  

For instance:


Example #1                                               Example #2

The first house has a lighter, golden body than example two, but the excessive trim is darker, receding away, and doesn't make a big deal out of the porch. Trim color choice forces the viewer (buyer!) to notice other things. The siding and the accent colors advance forward. The overall impression is heavier, and the elements that make the house memorable become a red door and bright blue accents.

The second house has a much darker body, but the trim is nearly white. This dramatically cues up the woodwork to sing loud and clear. The porch reaches out and thumps the viewer (buyer!) on the head. Accent colors are more inline with the body, and play  minor supporting roles to the detail. The house stands at ATTENTION in comparison to the lazier first example.

When would the trim be better darker, you might ask?

Well, if the woodwork is nothing to write home about, or skimpy, or even mismatched, darkening the trim would force another element to come forward, like the door, or the accented details. It takes the heat off trim that is in poor repair. A house with lackluster trim should not feature it's trim. Also, if the house has different levels, a dark trim evens the discrepancy by not screaming where the rooflines are. A tall half of a house feels lowered, as if darker trim actually weighs more.

When would light trim be better? If the trim is very nice, and would lend proportioinally to the overall architecture, lighter is better. It has a crisper posture, and stands taller and swells out. A small house with nice white trim looks both wider and taller.

White puffs it's chest out. Dark slouches lower down in it's seat. But sometimes, you WANT something to crouch down, so that other things will have more impact and leave a better impression.

Here's Some More Examples:

Example #3                                                               Example #4
 

In example 3, there are three major problems. First, it looks like the one house schooched over to tell another house a secret, rather than one single-family dwelling. Also, the house has many rooflines, and the tallest is off-center and drastically more drasmatic. Thirdly, one half of the house has rump-loads of trim and detail, the other half, virtually NONE.

The two halves of the house just don't relate, even though they share the same palette of colors.

So, you have to even the score.

A slight change in body color choice on Example 4 gives the left side more personality, making it "weigh" more, using a richer, less wimpy color. Knocking down the trim to a darker color reigns the heavily trimmed-out porch inward, and pulls those gabled windows down with more gravity, so they don't float so high. The rooflines flow better, because the apex of the left side of the house' roof visually seems evened out with the trio of gable points on the right side of the house. The darkened shutters give the left side more interest and impact.

Without anything other than a well-chosen, well-planned color scheme, you can visually change dimensions on a house. You can make it taller, or shorter, with a big porch, or a smaller one, with a more sober outllook, or a whimsical impression. By choosing color very carefully, and understanding thoroughly the way works on a large scale outdoors, you can control what a viewer notices first, what will be remembered later on.

It's not hard to learn, but it takes observation and practice. Try taking pictures in your neighborhood of houses that you like,  and take some of the ones you dislike. Don't analyze them while you are choosing houses. Just snap off 20 pics or so. Then, go home, load them in your computer, and really take note of what struck your fancy or didn't, and think about how color could be used on the houses you disliked to encourage balance and feature the elements you missed that are there in the pics, but lost because of color. You'll find yourself being able to diagnose a color condition, and half the battle of knowing what colors to choose is knowing what needs to be featured and what need to be de-emphasized.

We hope these tips help you to help your houses show to their best advantage, and give you an advantage, to!