Choosing the right siding color for your home can change its look and feel, and have an impact on its resale value. You also may have to live with the color a long time, so it’s a good idea to do the work up front and select the best color before siding installation.
1. Think About Your Environment
A lot of considerations come into play when deciding your new siding color, including personal preferences. But you should also give strong thought to your surrounding environment and how your house and siding will fit into that.
Think about your neighborhood and how your color will suit that. What’s the landscaping, or proposed landscaping, for your home? Stark, minimalist landscaping might call for a bright, even candy-like color to play counterpoint. Luxuriant wild growth and a medley of flower colors could help you decide to choose something more neutral and subdued.
Climate also plays a factor. How a house looks with new siding in summer might be quite different in the depth of winter. Keep in mind that the strong sunlight of summer makes colors look brighter.
2. Consider the Character of Your Home
The character of your home is revealed in its architecture. A stately old home has a decidedly different character than a modern bungalow and will likely call for a more subdued siding color scheme.
Take a close look, as well, at the color of your roof. As one of your home’s dominant visual elements, it should be taken into account as you decide a complimentary or contrasting siding color. If you are due to replace your roof soon, it’s a good idea to consider the colors of both your siding and new roof tiles at the same time.
As you look at your home, you will notice it seems different at different times of the day, as the light changes. Your siding color will also look different as the day progresses. To anticipate these changes, it’s a good idea, if you can, to apply swatches of your siding colors under consideration on different sides of your home. Look at them closely in the morning, afternoon, and evening to see changes. You should also place the swatches close to parts of your home where the color won’t change – brick foundations, for example.
3. Choose Complementary Colors
Your home siding color doesn’t ever stand on its own. As the main hue, it requires color accents that are lighter or darker complimentary colors. To create a coordinated effect, you might want to update the colors of your home’s railings, doors, window trim, and so on at the same time you are arranging for your siding installation.
